sign in sign up
<<
Home , Ali Abunimah, Battle of Karameh, Nadia Hijab, Nakba, Naksa Day, New Historians

MARKING THE From Betrayals and Warnings to Future Visions

A selection of Al-Shabaka analysis that reviews the past 100 years, dissects the present, and looks ahead to a better future.

May 2018 1 Table of Contents

2 Introduction by Nadia Hijab

3 Chapter One: In the Beginning Was 47 How Sovereign a State? Betrayal by Camille Mansour 4 Don’t Historicize the : The 52 Under Siege: Remembering Leningrad, Past is Still the ’ Present Surviving Gaza by Yara Hawari by Ayah Abubasheer and Esther Rappaport

8 After Balfour: 100 Years of History and the 58 Which : ’s Little-Known Master Roads Not Taken Plans by Zena Agha, Jamil Hilal, , Najwa by Nur Arafeh Al-Qattan, Mouin Rabbani, and Jaber Suleiman

15 Tracking the Trends of the Palestinian Cause 67 Chapter Four: Future Visions and Since 1967 Strategies by Nadia Hijab and Mouin Rabbani 69 Reclaiming Self-Determination by 19 Chapter Two: The ’ Long Path to 2018 74 Defeating Dependency, Creating a Resistance Economy 20 Decades of Displacing Palestinians: How by Alaa Tartir, Sam Bahour, Samer Abdelnour Israel Does It by Munir Nuseibah 79 BDS: A Global Movement for Freedom and Justice 25 Unwelcome Guests: in by Omar Barghouti by Dalal Yassine 84 To Achieve One State, Palestinians Must Also Work for Two 32 From Our Facebook Balconies, the Dark Heart by Nadia Hijab of Yarmuk by Ahmad Diab 89 Additional Recommended Reading 37 Chapter Three: Warning Signs Along the Road Please note that URLs have been provided as endnotes rather than as hyperlinks in the pieces reproduced in this booklet to 39 The Myth of American Pressure make it suitable for printing. For the original publications with by Osamah Khalil hyperlinks included, please go to al-shabaka.org. Introduction Some years ago, I saw after a long time in the early days but the one that prevailed apart. During the course of our conversation I said how was the settler colonial model that has had as its goal important it was that she was still living in . By the displacement of the majority of the indigenous contrast, I had lived in four different countries by that people, as is clear from a plethora of Zionist statements time (now seven). Hanan replied: “I never left. I knew and texts. This goal was accomplished in the 78% of that once you move, you keep on moving.” mandate Palestine that became Israel in 1948 and is being carried out today in the OPT. In the 70 years since the Nakba (Catastrophe), millions of Palestinians have been forced to move, and to To mark the Nakba, Al-Shabaka has drawn together a keep on moving not once but many times. Most were selection of pieces from its archives that offer reflections dispossessed and displaced in the harshest conditions on the past and present but also look ahead with of war, terror, and fear, with little more than the clothes suggestions for ways forward. As a think tank founded they wore, losing family members on the way or leaving to expand the space for policy analysis by Palestinians them behind. in order to ensure that these perspectives are taken into account by the policy community, civil society, and While the Israeli-Arab war of 1948 marks the year of the media, Al-Shabaka has since 2010 sought to bring the Palestinian Nakba, this was not a one-time event. thinking and well-grounded analysis to the table. The forcible dispossession of Palestinians began in 1947 and reached its peak with the creation of Israel on May This booklet is divided into four sections, each of 15, 1948, continuing thereafter as Israel gradually sealed which includes a short introduction and selected pieces. off the border and blocked the refugees’ return despite A list of additional reading is provided on p. 88. The its pledge to the . The Nakba continued first section, “In the Beginning Was Betrayal,” reviews through three major Arab-Israeli wars in 1956, 1967, and the roots of the conflict and includes discussion 1973 and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. on alternative trajectories history might have taken. This is followed in “The Path to the present Day” by The Nakba has also continued through Israel’s frequent analysis of the continuing impact on Palestinian lives, incursions into and assaults on Gaza, the , particularly since 1967. In “Warning Signs Along the and Lebanon, as well as its interference in civil wars Road,” Al-Shabaka analysts discuss the mistakes made in , Lebanon, and . One could add the US in the Palestinian movement for self-determination. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 – a war that violated the UN final section, “Future Visions and Strategies,” examines Charter – given the strong Israeli support of that project, the goals of the Palestinian struggle and ways to move as well as other great power geopolitical schemes in the ahead. . These wars and crises resulted in great destruction in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, and There is much more analysis on Al-Shabaka’s website the dispossession of millions of . The Palestinian that can inform the present time and help build for the condition has been described as the «most protracted future, and readers are encouraged to browse through and largest» problem in the world. the sections on politics, economic issues, refugees, and civil society. Beyond these major events, the Nakba continues every day through the relentless dispossession of Palestinians, If the cycle of war and violence is to be broken, it is home by home and village by village on both sides of important that our work to fulfill the inalienable rights the Green Line – within Israel as well as within the of the Palestinian people does not create new wrongs. Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Witness the plans Implementing justice without prejudice to the rights of for villages such as Al-Walaja and others surrounded by others and upholding one’s identity without diminishing Israel’s Separation Wall in the OPT or the uprooting, or destroying that of others willing to live in peace as recently as 2018, of the in Umm Al-Hiran and justice are not signs of weakness but of strength. within present-day Israel. Despite repeated attempts to crush the Palestinian people over the past century, it is remarkable how many The brutal, decades-long fallout of the Nakba has its still hold this view. roots in the original Zionist project to build a in Palestine shaped at the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 and given an imperial imprimatur by Nadia Hijab Britain in 1917. There was more than one strand of President, Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network 2 Chapter One In the Beginning Was Betrayal

Britain’s betrayal of the Palestinian people through the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – and of the rest of the Arab national movement through the Sykes-Picot Agreement with in 1916 – has been well studied. The 100th anniversary of the declaration in 2017 was marked by protests, literature, and cultural events, as well as official and popular Palestinian demands for an apology from Britain.

The refusal of imperial powers to, at a minimum, apologize for the violation of the individual and national rights of their “subjects” and the rape of their homelands has contributed to a culture of impunity that has continued through the 20th century. That culture of impunity greatly contributed to Israel’s repeated violations of international law over the past 70 years despite international condemnation of its refusal to recognize the rights of Palestinian refugees since 1948, compounded by its occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands in 1967, an occupation that marked its 50th anniversary in 2017. This section includes four pieces that reflect on how historical events have - or could have - shaped the present.

Don’t Historicize the Balfour Declaration: The Past is Still the Palestinians’ Present

Yara Hawari reflects on Britain’s imperial legacy and discusses the nature of an apology that would be meaningful today.

After Balfour: 100 Years of History and the Roads Not Taken

In this unique exercise Zena Agha, Jamil Hilal, Rashid Khalidi, Najwa Al-Qattan, Mouin Rabbani, and Jaber Suleiman each choose a different point of history from the past 100 years and reflect on whether Palestinians could have influenced the course of events in a different direction. They also draw lessons that should be applied in the Palestinian quest for self-determination, freedom, justice, and equality.

Tracking the Trends of the Palestinian Cause Since 1967

Nadia Hijab and Mouin Rabbani take stock of the Palestinian cause from the eve of the 1967 war to 2017. They note that while the Palestinian people are today at one of the weakest points in their history, major obstacles remain in the face of Israel’s attempts to snuff out Palestinian self-determination. 3 Don’t Historicize the Balfour Declaration: The Past is Still the Palestinians’ Present

by Yara Hawari July 2017

Overview Balfour centennial to begin to address Britain’s century of ill-treatment toward the Palestinians.3 The political turmoil in the following Prime Minister Theresa May’s re-election with a This commentary traces Britain’s treatment of Palestine reduced, precarious majority and the implications for and the Palestinians since the time of Balfour’s letter, the UK’s negotiations to leave the have demonstrating a largely consistent pro-Israel stance overshadowed Britain’s other foreign policy concerns. over the decades. It then considers the consequences Among other repercussions, it casts doubt on the way in that Brexit and the recent elections may have for the which the UK will mark the centennial of the Balfour Palestinian cause, and concludes with recommendations Declaration later this year. As is well known, the fateful regarding the kind of apology Palestinians should letter, signed by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour on demand of Britain in light of these past and current November 2, 1917, promised British support of a events. Jewish homeland in Palestine, completely disregarding the sovereign rights of the Palestinian people who lived One Hundred Years of Bias there. Theresa May’s fawning to the Conservative Friends Prior to the elections May had described1 the declaration of Israel came as no surprise. Britain’s involvement as “one of the most important letters in history” during in Israel and Palestine has consisted of an almost a speech to a Conservative Friends of Israel meeting, unwavering support for the Zionist project since its and said it was “an anniversary we will be marking with colonial inception. Despite claims of a commitment pride.” May’s comments suggested that the British to peace, Britain has shown that it is Israel’s ally first Embassy in would host a large celebration and foremost. This can be seen in its continued arms to honor the occasion. In addition, President Reuven trade with Israel, despite resultant complicity in Israeli Rivlin invited the royal family for an official state visit war crimes. Britain has also failed to sanction Israel to coincide with the anniversary. Though the Queen is for its continued settlement building in the West Bank, unlikely to travel, Prince Charles may attend.2 which has doubled since the , with over half a million settlers in areas that would constitute a Palestinian state. Moreover, the British government “Despite claims of a continues to demonize the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), the global nonviolent commitment to peace, grassroots campaign for Palestinian rights.4 Britain has shown that it is A century ago, Christian Zionist ideology, which sought Israel’s ally.” to facilitate the return of Jews to the to fulfil a biblical prophesy, guided Britain’s political elite. This cadre included the prime minister, Lloyd George, who led the coalition government. Just over a month Now it is an open question as to whether May – or after the Balfour Declaration, General Edmund Allenby indeed the Conservative Party – can stay in power. This took Jerusalem from the Ottoman forces, marking the provides the Palestinians with an opportune moment to beginning of British colonial rule in Palestine. Though regroup in their efforts, hitherto unsuccessful, to use the this rule ended at the establishment of the State of

4 Israel in May 1948 and the forcible displacement of for his decades of support for the Palestinian cause, and denial of return to the majority of the Palestinian particularly for his affiliation with the Palestine Solidarity population, British interference in Palestine would Campaign. Critics dubbed him a supporter and continue thanks to Britain’s unwavering commitment to an anti-Semite. After his election, the party endured Zionism. an anti-Semitism scandal that saw the suspension of several party members, including the Jewish activist Jackie Walker, who in a Facebook post referred “Calls from activists to the African slave trade as a holocaust.9 Corbyn subsequently launched an inquiry10 headed by the demanding that the barrister and advocate Shami Chakrabarti. The inquiry published its report in June of 2016 and UK cease its arms trade confirmed that despite these claims, Labour is not overrun by anti-Semitism. Many saw the scandal as part with Israel have come to of an ongoing attempt11 by pro-Israel and pro-Blair figures to weaken and undermine Corbyn. Overall, naught.” it demonstrates how serious it is for a leading British political figure to take a pro-Palestine stance. The Zionism found support in the British Labour Party, Conservative Party particularly encouraged the attacks which was sympathetic to a movement it saw as a on Corbyn. socialist Jewish liberation project. It is thus unsurprising that the party publicly supported the Balfour British Foreign Policy on Palestine: What’s Declaration. However, after the 1967 occupation of Next? the West Bank, , and , more critical voices began to emerge. This coincided with In the wake of May’s failed attempt to expand her international recognition of the Palestinian Liberation majority, it is now unclear what form Brexit will take. Organization (PLO) and Israel’s shift to the right. But if Britain leaves the European Union as planned in 2019, some argue that Palestinians may benefit. Ilan Under Tony Blair’s rebranded “New Labour,” the party Pappe, for example, suggests that Brexit could be12 an renewed its support for Israel. In fact, Israel’s most “opportune moment to advance Palestinian freedom” ardent supporter in recent British politics is Blair, who in that Israel would lose its advocate in the EU. As from the very beginning of his political career in the such, EU countries could put forward more initiatives 5 early 1980s, was a member of the pro-Israel lobby to back Palestinian rights without being blocked by a group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). During his staunchly pro-Israel Britain. Two months before the premiership he visited Israel several times, and counted Brexit referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron used 6 Lord Michael Levy, a staunch Zionist among his closest this argument to support his anti-Brexit stance13 while advisors and biggest fundraisers. addressing a Jewish : “When Europe is discussing its attitude toward Israel, do you want Britain – Israel’s Under Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, human rights greatest friend – in there opposing boycotts, opposing activists brought attention to Britain’s relations and the campaign for divestment and sanctions, or do particularly its military trade with Israel during Israel’s you want us outside the room, powerless to affect the 2008-2009 Cast Lead offensive in Gaza. A 2014 discussion that takes place?” parliamentary report7 confirmed that the Israeli army used weapons from the UK in its attacks, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians.8 Yet calls from activists demanding that the UK cease its arms “When the past infiltrates trade with Israel have come to naught, and relations the present, the demand between Britain and Israel continue unabated. to forget is impossible.” The current Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has a different stance on Palestine. He has been hounded

5 By promising to fight against BDS within the EU, those in positions of power in peace process discourses Cameron catered to pro-Israel groups whose fears around the world, particularly in contexts of of Palestinian activism increased in 2015 after the and settler colonialism. However, when the past issued its interpretive notice infiltrates the present, as is the case for every Palestinian, that products made in Israeli settlements bound for whether in Ramallah, Haifa, the Bourj Al Barajneh the EU be labeled as such. The UK’s stance against in Lebanon, or the wider diaspora, the BDS stands in contrast to European countries14 such as demand to forget is impossible. Sweden, Ireland, and Holland, which have affirmed BDS as a legal example of free political expression. Palestinians rightly desire a British apology for the letter that helped birth this ongoing oppression. However, initiatives in pursuit of this goal must be wary of several “A discourse that the pitfalls. First, using a discourse, as some Palestinians do, that stresses that the Balfour Declaration has not Balfour Declaration has fulfilled its obligations to the Palestinian people is problematic, as it suggests that the document holds not fulfilled its obligations legitimacy. The declaration was a colonial document that gave legitimacy to a settler colonial project and as such, to Palestinians is Palestinians should not use it to further their struggle or problematic.” to claim their human rights. Second, while an apology is important, it must not While an EU without Britain might be able to operate come as an empty, symbolic gesture, as has happened more freely in its support for Palestinians (Israel can in many other colonial contexts. Indeed, scholars have still count on strong support from central and Eastern written about the limitations of settler state apologies, European countries to block initiatives for a just peace), arguing that in most cases these apologies neutralize the inverse is also true: Israel’s “greatest friend” would the historical narrative while simultaneously ignoring have fewer checks on it from European countries that the ongoing oppressive relationship between the state support Palestinian rights. This could allow Britain to and the indigenous people.3 An apology must therefore impose draconian restrictions on those in the country come with the recognition that the past is not in the who support the Palestinian cause, particularly those past, that the settler colonial project is ongoing, and that affiliated with BDS. Britain continues to be complicit in the suffering of the Palestinians through its diplomatic and trade relations The Kind of Apology Palestinians Need and with Israel. Deserve As such, any apology campaign must also demand The Balfour Declaration has shaped the Palestinian British policy changes that would sanction Israel and experience. The signing over of Palestine to a European hold it to account for its international human rights settler colonial enterprise and the disregard for the violations. In this way, the Balfour Declaration would rights of the indigenous people is the essence of the not be historicized as a thing of the past, but would be Palestinian condition. This disregard continues today, revealed as a document whose legacy continues to have manifested in the charade of the “peace process,” drastic and devastating consequences for the Palestinian which allows Israel to continue its expropriation of people. Until the British government reconsiders its Palestinian land and expansion of a Jewish state while largely default position and makes a commitment to simultaneously professing its pursuit of “peace.” real policy change, it will continue to propagate the destructive and repressive decision it made a century British officials have a common refrain when they ago. discuss Balfour and the 1948 Nakba: They often state that Palestinians should stop talking about the past and instead focus on the future. This call for the dismissal of past events as bygones is a tactic often invoked by 6 affect-europes-approach-to-israel-by-staying-in-eu#. Endnotes V21lLz0hjsM.facebook

1. See: http://www.conservativehome.com/ 14. See: https://bdsmovement.net/news/irish-and- parliament/2016/12/mays-speech-to-the- dutch-governments-join-sweden-speaking-out-right- conservative-friends-of-israel-full-text.html call-bds

2. See: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/royal- family-to-mark-balfour-centenary-with-official-visit- to-israel-7ns8cglcb

3. These efforts include a plan to sue the British government for the declaration announced by Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki at an summit last year, and a petition demanding an apology for the letter, to which the government responded by largely re-stating its position.

4. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign won a major legal victory against one such attempt to demonizse BDS in court on June 22, 2017.

5. See: https://electronicintifada.net/content/tony- blair-true-friend-israel/7038

6. Ibid 5

7. See: https://www.publications.parliament. uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090421/ wmstext/90421m0001.htm#090421109000043)

8. See: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/ hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf

9. See: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england- kent-36203911

10. See: http://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/party- documents/ChakrabartiInquiry.pdf

11. See: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa- winstanley/labours-israel-lobby-plans-relaunch- campaign-against-corbyn

12. See: https://electronicintifada.net/content/why- brexit-may-be-palestines-gain/17366

13. See: http://www.jta.org/2016/06/21/news- opinion/world/david-cameron-britain-can-only-

7 After Balfour: 100 Years of History and the Roads Not Taken

with Zena Agha, Jamil Hilal, Rashid Khalidi, Najwa Al-Qattan, Mouin Rabbani, and Jaber Suleiman

Overview question is always: Who is going to draw the lessons, and how can they be made to act on them? A worldwide wave of analysis and activism is marking the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration on How pivotal was the great catastrophe of the Holocaust November 2, 2017. The Declaration gave an imperial in leading to the creation of Israel? Najwa al-Qattan imprimatur to the Zionist movement’s resolution at its argues that though there is certainly a historical first conference in Basel in 1897 to “establish a home connection, there is no causal relationship, and she thus for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public urges a critical reading of history to map the future. law” and launched never-ending war and violence and Mouin Rabbani contests the accounts that Anwar Sadat’s the dispossession, dispersal, and occupation of the 1977 visit to Jerusalem was a promising initiative that Palestinian people. went sour, pointing out that when the Egyptian leader took the Arab military option against Israel off the table Could history have taken a different trajectory? Were he deprived the PLO and the Arab states of a credible there points during the past century at which the diplomatic option. Jaber Suleiman compares the fate Palestinians could have influenced the course of events of the 1987 Intifada against Israeli occupation to that in a different direction? We turned to the historians of the Palestinian Revolt of 1936 against the British and analysts in Al-Shabaka’s policy network and asked occupation and draws several lessons, in particular the them to identify and reflect on a turning point at which importance of linking tactics to a clear strategic national things might have gone differently had the Palestinian vision that guides the Palestinian struggle at every stage. people decided on another course of action, and to draw The roundtable was facilitated by Nadia Hijab. lessons that should be applied in this quest for self- determination, freedom, justice, and equality. Rashid Khalidi: The White Paper and a Systemic Misunderstanding of Power The roundtable begins with Rashid Khalidi and his pithy reflection on the Palestinian leaders’ perennial Could the 1939 White Paper have been a turning point misunderstanding of global power dynamics, using the in Palestinian history?1 If anything, it would have been a 1939 White Paper to illustrate this fatal weakness. Zena minor one. Had the Palestinian leadership accepted the Agha zeroes in on the 1936 – the White Paper, they could have repositioned themselves first time partition was mentioned as a solution – and vis-à-vis the colonial power. That might have improved questions whether partition is indeed inevitable, even their position at the end of the 1936-1939 revolt and today, as the Commission averred. aligned them with Britain when the Zionists turned against it. Jamil Hilal tackles the Partition Plan itself – UN Resolution 181 of 1947 – noting the rationale of the However, Britain was a waning power. The minority of Palestinians that argued for accepting it and the Soviets were in the wings and burst on to the to buy time to recover the strength of the national scene soon afterward. In 1941 the Nazis attacked the movement after it was crushed by the British and the USSR and Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and the world Zionists. In drawing the lessons from Balfour, the changed, so whatever the Palestinians might have done Partition Plan, and Oslo, Hilal asks: When we ask what with Britain would likely have had little effect. In a sense, lessons we, as Palestinians, can draw from history, the the great Palestinian revolt came too late. The Egyptians

8 had rebelled in 1919, the Iraqis in 1920, and the Syrians If there is one lesson from history to draw from this in 1925. By the 1930s, especially once the Nazis came brief discussion, it is that you don’t go to the top. to power, the Zionist project was fully embedded in You don’t speak to Lord Balfour or talk to Secretary Palestine. Tillerson. It is the structures of power you have to understand – Balfour was part of a government, of What that period does throw into sharp relief, however, a political party, of a class, of a system, and so is is the chronic problem of the Palestinian leadership, Tillerson. You have to understand those structures, as which was, without exception, poorly served by a well as the media, and have a strategy to deal with them. minimal understanding of the world balance of forces. The idea that you can go to the top is an illusion that Palestinians were competing with a colonial movement Palestinians and Arabs generally have had because of that was based in Europe and the US and made up the way the systems ruled by Arab kings and dictators of Europeans whose native languages were European work. The national leadership is so far from having a and who were connected to influential people in both strategy to deal with the US, it’s pitiful. By contrast, Europe and the US. Palestinian civil society is doing a fantastic job, both that based in the diaspora and in Palestine: They are the ones who have an understanding of how the world works. “The Palestinian national leadership is so far from Zena Agha: Partition was Not a Pillar of Policy The long and baleful ’s colonial having a US strategy, it’s conquest offers many mistakes and missed pitiful.” opportunities. In the context of the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, the Peel Commission – a report produced by the same imperial power as the 1917 To compete with a movement like that, Palestinian Declaration – is a pivotal, if overlooked, moment in the leaders would have had to have people with connections history of the Palestinian quest for self-determination. in the system who were fluent in the languages and who understood both international and domestic Conducted under the auspices of Lord Peel, the politics. The Palestinians did not have that during the Commission was the result of the British mission to British Mandate – just read their memoirs. Some did Palestine in 1936. Its stated aims2 were “to ascertain have inklings but they were unequal to the competition the underlying causes of the disturbances” in Palestine before and after the Balfour Declaration and before and following the six-month Arab general strike and “to after the White Paper. And not much has changed in the enquire into the manner in which the Mandate for last 100 years, especially as regards the US. The PLO Palestine is being implemented in relation to the had a good understanding of the Third World and how obligations of the Mandatory toward the Arabs and the it operated, a good understanding of the , Jews respectively.” and some understanding of Western Europe, which is why it scored diplomatic victories in the 1970s. But it According to the report issued in July 1937, the conflict had the dimmest understanding of US politics, and it between Arabs and Jews was irreconcilable and, as still does. a consequence, the Commission recommended the termination of the British Mandate and the partition The younger Palestinian generation that has grown of Palestine into two states: one Arab, the other Jewish. up in the US and in Europe is far better positioned. It Partition was presumed to be the only way to “resolve” has the connections and understanding of how these the two sides’ antithetical national ambitions and societies function, which is not the case for Palestinian extricate Britain from its predicament. leaders, or indeed for their own parents’ generation. As this generation gains in wealth and influence as lawyers, Despite the commitments outlined in the Balfour doctors, media professionals, and financial managers, Declaration, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and they will have no inhibitions about using their power the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, the and influence to promote justice for Palestinians. recommendation of partition formally acknowledged

9 the incompatibility of Britain’s obligations to the two Jamil Hilal: The Partition Plan and the Fork in the communities. The Peel Commission was the first Road recognition that the British mandate’s premise was untenable, almost 20 years after it was established. It was To understand the roads not taken when UN Resolution also the first time that partition had been mentioned as a 181 (also known as the Partition Plan) passed in 1947, “solution” to the conflict Britain had created. one must revisit the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and its outcomes. The Declaration reflected Britain’s interests Both parties rejected the Commission’s in the region, namely the use of Palestine as a safeguard recommendation. Zionist leaders were dissatisfied with of its control over the Suez Canal and as a buffer against the size of the allocated territory, despite supporting French ambitions over southern Syria. British concerns partition as an outcome. From the Palestinian were thus both economic (access to the Canal and access perspective, partition was a violation of the rights of the to and control of oil and gas) as well as political (control Arab inhabitants of Palestine. The Commission’s report over Palestine as acquired from the ). sparked the spontaneous Arab revolt from 1936 until its This control is why Britain committed to establishing a violent quashing by the British in 1939. “Jewish home” in Palestine, rather than a Jewish state.

Settler colonialism by European Jews against the wishes “Partition was by no of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs implemented the Declaration. This British-instigated European means inevitable nor colonization of Palestine started well before the dreadful atrocities committed by the Nazi regime in Hitler’s reasonable.” Germany. There was much Palestinian resistance to this double colonization of Palestine, of which the best It is difficult to say what form an alternative course known is the great rebellion of 1936-39. The leadership might have taken. After all, the Arab revolt (and the of the Palestinian national movement that fought failure of the Anglo-Arab-Jewish conference in London Zionist colonization was split in its view of British rule in February 1939) led to the issuing of the White Paper over Palestine. Some leaders thought that Britain could of 1939, which stated3: “His Majesty’s Government be won over, while others considered it the main enemy. therefore now declare unequivocally that it is not part of This split over the role of the imperial power versus the their policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State.” direct enemy is also in evidence today. By any measure, this was a victory for the Palestinian community. It was what came after, namely the Second The measures the British and the Zionist forces took to World War and the horrors of the Holocaust, that crush the 1936-39 rebellion left the national movement drastically tipped the scales in favor of a Jewish state in exhausted, the leadership scattered, and the Palestinian Palestine. economy in ruins. Thereafter there was no clear strategy, apart from demanding independence, a situation that The Peel Commission and its aftermath offer a timely also has similarities to today. reminder that the partition of Palestine was never a pillar of the British Mandate. Rather, partition was suggested The Palestinian response to the UN Partition Plan as a desperate measure to extricate Britain, as a colonial reflected the exhaustion of the national movement. power, from the Palestine quagmire. That partition There was no unified strategy and no discussions to then became the established orthodoxy for the newly solicit the people’s views on the best course of action, formed United Nations, and almost every negotiation both tactical and strategic. Only a small section of the since, was by no means inevitable nor reasonable. As national movement was ready to accept the Plan. The we look to draw lessons for the future, it is perhaps majority rejected it, but did not put forward a clear worth dislodging the by now well-established myth alternative. The minority that argued for Palestinian that partitioning historic Palestine is the only means of acceptance believed it could be used to foil the Zionist securing peace, whatever form that peace may take. project of occupying as much of the land as possible with the minimum of its indigenous population

10 This group believed that acceptance would give the of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the United Palestinians space and time to build up their strength Nations General Assembly as a non-voting member. and their capacities, establish a state, and develop relations with the region and the world. Others argued In 1998, the PNC approved the two-state solution at a that such a move would not thwart the Zionist plan. time when the had mobilized a great deal of global support for the Palestinian cause. However, the Oslo Accords of 1993 and beyond represented a “The Palestinian much more detrimental partition of Palestine than even the original Partition Plan and culminated in the present response to the Partition period, in which the balance of power between Israel and the Palestinians locally, regionally, and internationally Plan reflected the is heavily in favor of Israel.

exhaustion of the national Given the fact that the Oslo Accords have not resulted in an independent Palestinian state, we must ask: movement.” Should Palestinians persist with the two-state project while waiting for a change in the balance of power, or The rejection of the Partition Plan was naturally should they adopt a new strategy that calls for building a understandable. For Palestinians it meant giving up unified democratic state in historic Palestine – the slogan more than half their homeland to a European colonial that enlightened elements of the Palestinian national settler movement that invaded and colonized their movement raised before the Nakba, and again in the late country by force and with protection of the British 1960s? This time, however, the question must be tackled Empire. It violated their right to self-determination and with a clear vision and strategy and through deliberation independence and their call for a democratic state that by Palestinian communities in historic Palestine and in would guarantee the rights of all its citizens regardless the diaspora. of religion, ethnicity, and race. Furthermore, the British- Zionist project was not just against the Palestinians: The Yet discussion is not enough. When we ask what lessons whole Arab region was pulled in. we, as Palestinians, can draw from history, my question is always: Who is going to draw the lessons? And will The Zionist movement seized upon the rejection of those who have the power have the will to act with the Plan as a refusal of a peaceful settlement and a those lessons in mind? Intellectuals often think their justification for waging war against the Palestinians when analysis will somehow reach the political class that is in they were unprepared, disorganized, and leaderless. a position to take action. But without action by pressure groups, social movements, political parties, trades Alternatives to the Partition Plan were thus not fully unions, and other forms of power, little will be achieved. developed and discussed. The arguments put forward by those who favored accepting the plan were not Najwa al-Qattan: Reading History Through the sufficiently debated, and no attempts were made Lens of Reality to articulate a new strategy to confront the Zionist movement. Such a trajectory might have impacted The emergence of the state of Israel in 1948 was Israel and led later to the reunification of Palestine on a the consequence of several historical developments democratic basis. Those ideas were at least something to stretching back to the nineteenth century. Although the discuss. Holocaust played a role in the birth of Israel, it was more akin to a midwife than to a parent. Nevertheless, Ironically, some of the arguments from that era were there is the perception, both in the West and among echoed in 1974 in advocating the transitional program, Palestinians, that the two are causally related. This also known as the 10-point program, which aimed perception is not simply due to a logical fallacy to establish a state on any part of Palestine that was according to which post hoc ergo proctor hoc, or B followed liberated. The program, which was approved by the A, therefore A caused B. In fact, it is precisely the six Palestinian National Council (PNC), facilitated the entry short years that separate the two events that should give

11 us pause. Here I argue against a direct causal relationship to timing. Although Zionist state builders were, by the between the two, while also suggesting reasons for why early decades of the twentieth century, unanimous on they are twinned in the popular imagination. I conclude the ultimate objective of establishing a Jewish state in with the lessons that may be drawn from a more critical Palestine, they disagreed on the optimal time (as well kind of history. as the extent of the territory). Along these lines, the Holocaust certainly led the Zionist leadership to stress the urgency of the state, such as during the Biltmore “The Holocaust was more Program in 1942, as did Britain’s announcement of its plans to withdraw from Palestine in 1947. Still, this akin to a midwife than to does not mean that one caused the other; the plans and activities relating to state building were well advanced by a parent in the birth of that time.

Israel.” The second connection is the stuff of political propaganda: the linkage between the Holocaust and When David Ben Gurion announced the birth of Israel Israel is often used to denounce criticism of Israel in May 1948, he was hardly conjuring a state out of as anti-Semitic and to erase from the narrative the whole cloth. Rather, he was capping 50 years’ worth and diaspora of the Palestinian people. of Zionist effort. Israel was the consequence of both Two years ago, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin long- and short-term historical developments: Racial Netanyahu went so far as to make the spurious claim4 or modern anti-Semitism in Europe in the nineteenth that it was the Palestinians who suggested the idea of century; the emergence of the Zionist movement the Final Solution to Hitler. as both a response to modern anti-Semitism and to nationalist movements in Russia and Western Europe; Whether under occupation or scattered in their own the success of early Zionism in combining Israeli-made diaspora, Palestinians sometimes imagine with in order to settle “a land without that had the Holocaust not happened, then Israel would people” by “a people without land;” the British Mandate not have either. Rather than reimagine the past, we are for Palestine under whose protective framework – as better served by learning from it in order to shape a enshrined in the Balfour Declaration – successive waves peaceful and humane future. First, the secret to building of European Jewish immigrants built pre-state social, a Palestinian state (no matter what form it takes) is economic, political, and military institutions. the density and health of its people, its institutions, and its civil society, as well as the determination of its Among the approximately 600,000 European Jews political leadership and civil society to challenge Israel’s who had immigrated to Palestine by 1948, Holocaust occupation and denial of Palestinian rights. Second, survivors numbered 120,000. The population of Israel although the Holocaust did not directly cause the state grew rapidly in the first few years of its life as new of Israel to emerge, we should wish it away for the only immigrants arrived. New waves of Holocaust survivors reason that matters: The moral one. numbered 300,000, but there were also over 475,000 Jews from the Middle East and elsewhere. Considering Mouin Rabbani: The Reverberations of Sadat’s the Zionist idea that the Jewish state was to provide Separate Peace a refuge from European anti-Semitism and a national home for the Jewish people, this was a moral and The Palestinian people seem to have a difficult political blow to Zionism. The idea was that if you build relationship with years ending in the number seven. it, they will come, but millions did not, even after the The First Zionist Congress convened in the Swiss city manmade human catastrophe of the Holocaust, which of Basel in 1897; 1917 saw Arthur Balfour issue his devoured six million Jews. ignominious declaration committing Great Britain to the transformation of Palestine into a Jewish National This is not to deny an historical connection between Home; the Peel Commission, recommending that the two events. The first connection between the London adopt partition as official policy, published its Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel relates report in 1937; UN General Assembly Resolution 181

12 recommending the partition of Palestine was adopted In one fell swoop, the idiosyncratic and increasingly on November 29, 1947; and the resulting statelet erratic Egyptian leader took the Arab military option of Israel occupied the remainder of Palestine and against Israel off the table. In doing so he also deprived additional Arab territories in 1967. A half century later, the PLO and the Arab states of a credible diplomatic in 2017, it seems more or less permanently ensconced in option. them. The prominent exception to this pattern of loss and tragedy is 1987, the year in which the Intifada, the The immediate consequence was the devastating popular uprising in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and eviction of the erupted to once again give Palestinians everywhere hope Palestinian national movement from Lebanon. A decade of national liberation. later, the 1993 Oslo agreement was nothing if not an elaboration of the autonomy plan incorporated into the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. That Israel has yet “That Israel has yet to name a settlement after Anwar Sadat is one of the to name a settlement region’s great mysteries. Had – as it nearly did – resisted the temptation after Sadat is one of the of a separate peace with Israel in the late 1970s, the Middle East today would be a very different and almost region’s great mysteries.” certainly much better place. The Palestinians and Arab states would have retained a credible diplomatic option, Often missing from this roll call is 1977, the year and been in a position to apply meaningful military in which Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat launched his pressure if Israel had refused to reciprocate. initiative to make a separate peace with Israel. Sadat’s self-proclaimed “pilgrimage” to ’s Jaber Suleiman: Re-learning the Lessons of the embrace is routinely presented as the auspicious First Intifada beginning of an Arab-Israeli peace process that subsequently went sour. One doesn’t need the benefit of The first Intifada of 1987 was a brilliant model of hindsight to understand that it was not, and could never Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation. It have been, anything of the sort. engaged all segments of the Palestinian people and was characterized by unity, organization, and creativity. Sadat had spent much of the 1970s, and the years after It also successfully revived the Palestinian cause on the 1973 October War in particular, reconfiguring the international stage after the Palestine Liberation Egypt. Formerly the ’s center of gravity Organization (PLO) was driven out of in 1982, that sought and achieved global prominence, it was losing its base. under Sadat’s leadership that Egypt was gradually reduced to a US-Saudi client state. The accompanying socioeconomic reforms – the infitah policy – opened “The Palestinian Egypt’s doors to every crooked capitalist and crony willing to pay the price of admission. Such changes also leadership should be produced, in early 1977, an explosion of popular unrest, unprecedented since the 1952 coup, which came within inspired by the fighting inches of putting an end to Sadat’s rule. His flight to Tel Aviv later that year was a direct outcome of these spirit of the Palestinian developments. Yet the air of inevitability with which people.” his initiative has since been invested – presented as a logical and necessary consequence of the 1974-75 Sinai Disengagement Agreements in the wake of the October Since then, every time the Palestinians rise up against 1973 Arab-Israeli War – is tantamount to reading history the Israeli occupation we wonder: Will there be a new backward. It took friend and foe alike by utter surprise intifada - a third Intifada, give that the Intifada in the for good reason. year 2000 was the second? Some analysts are quick

13 to use the term “intifada” to refer to any promising ones, and vice versa, during all stages of the struggle popular action, such as the 2015 youth movement and, and in light of changes on the ground and in global most recently, the Jerusalem “wave of anger,” which alliances. This ensures that, whatever the stage of continues intermittently in 2017. This underscores struggle, political expediency is not prioritized over the pivotal position of the first Intifada, which lasted end goals. three years. Indeed, it is comparable only to the great Palestinian revolt of 1936-1939. Both the Intifada • It is vital to uphold the legal underpinnings of the and the revolt faced the same tragic fate, albeit under conflict, based on the principles of justice enshrined different historical circumstances. in the United Nations Charter, which supersede international law under Article I of the Charter. This The Palestinian leadership of the 1930s responded to ensures that the legal ground for Palestinian rights Arab leaders’ appeal to halt the revolt to hear out the is not manipulated, and that those rights remain the “good intentions of our ally Britain,” which had pledged reference point for all negotiations. This was not the to fulfil Arab demands. In 1988, the PLO decided at the case in Oslo. 19th session of the National Council to extract political capital from the first Intifada to achieve freedom and • The Palestinian leadership – current or future independence. It believed it had brought the struggle – should be inspired by the fighting spirit that home and that the Intifada had provided the impetus the people have demonstrated over a century of needed to implement the interim political program it resisting the Zionist project. The leadership should had adopted in 1974, which involved the establishment learn from these historical experiences to boost its of a Palestinian entity on any part of Palestine that had faith in the revolutionary potential of the Palestinian been liberated. The upshot was a deformity of a state as people, and prevent narrow and shortsighted a result of the Oslo Accords. political exploitation of solid achievements in the struggle that harm Palestinian national rights. Given that the circumstances of the 1936 revolt were not conducive to the realization of the Palestinian right of self-determination, why was the first Intifada unable to draw on this rich experience in order to avoid Endnotes its tragic fate? Instead, the first Intifada suffered the same fate because it was invested in the Oslo process 1. The British Government adopted the White Paper too hastily, and the Palestinian people continue to in 1939, and it was policy until the end of the British reap its bitter outcome. This includes the division, Mandate in 1948. The White Paper rejected partition fragmentation, and weakening of their national and declared that the Jewish national home should movement after it held a distinguished place among the be within an independent Palestine with limits on world’s national liberation movements in the 1970s. immigration.

This question becomes even more pressing on the 2. See: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/text-of-the- centennial of the Balfour Declaration, as the wretched peel-commission-report Oslo peace process has arrived at a dead end after more than two decades of futile negotiations. The facts on 3. Ibid 2 the ground created by Israeli settlements – and Israel’s refusal to withdraw from the land occupied in 1967 – 4. Ibid 2 have rendered the two-state solution impossible. Today, it is urgent to question how the lessons of the first Intifada and its outcomes should be applied to a just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

• History reveals the importance of possessing a clear strategic vision for the Palestinian national struggle and ensuring that tactical moves feed into strategic

14 Tracking the Trends of the Palestinian Cause Since 1967

by Nadia Hijab and Mouin Rabbani June 2017

The Palestinian cause today has in some respects political actor, and place the Palestinian cause at the reverted to where it stood before the 1967 War. It is heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. worth retracing this trajectory to understand how we reached the current situation, and derive insights on This, perhaps the PLO’s most important achievement, where to go from here. has sustained the spirit of the Palestinian quest for self-determination despite the myriad wounds inflicted Looking Back by Israel and some Arab states – and despite the self- inflicted wounds. The setbacks the PLO suffered were On the eve of June 5, 1967, the Palestinians were many, even as it succeeded in putting the Palestinian dispersed among Israel, the Jordanian-ruled West Bank question high on the international agenda. It is worth (including ), the Gaza Strip administered reviewing the PLO’s successes and defeats in order to by Egypt, and refugee communities in Jordan, Syria, understand how the Palestinian national movement Lebanon, and beyond. Their aspirations for salvation reached the place it is in today. and self-determination were pinned to Arab leaders’ pledges to “liberate Palestine” – which then referred to those parts of Mandate Palestine that became Israel “The PLO proved in 1948 – and in particular to the charismatic Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser. incapable of capitalizing

The Six-Day War, which resulted in Israel’s occupation on the success of the First of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Intifada.” Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, brought dramatic changes to the geography of the conflict. It also produced a sea change The first PLO victory also laid the seeds of a defeat. in the Palestinian body politic. In a sharp break with The 1968 battle of in the , in previous decades, Palestinians became the masters of which the guerrillas and the Jordanian Army pushed their own destiny rather than spectators to regional back a far superior Israeli expeditionary force, gained and international decisions affecting their lives and many Palestinian and Arab adherents to the movement, determining their fate. whether refugees, guerrillas, or businessmen from across the political spectrum. At the same time, the The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had implicit threat to the Hashemite monarchy was clear, been established in 1964 under the aegis of the Arab and Palestinian relations with Jordan worsened until the League at its first summit meeting, was overtaken in PLO was expelled from Jordan during 1968-69 by the Palestinian guerrilla groups that had been in 1970. This effectively meant that the PLO no longer forming underground since the 1950s, with (the had a credible military option against Israel, assuming Palestinian National Liberation Movement) at their head. it ever had. Although the Palestinians would maintain The Arab defeat in 1967 created a vacuum in which an extensive military presence in Lebanon until 1982, it Palestinians were able to re-establish custodianship over was a poor substitute for the longest Arab frontier with the question of Palestine, transform the dispersed parts historic Palestine. of the Palestinian population into a unified people and

15 During the 1973 October War, Egypt and Syria achieved Intifada in December 1987, largely led by a home-grown partial victories against Israel but also suffered severe leadership. This resurrected the option of successfully setbacks, demonstrating that the Arab states also had confronting Israel on the basis of nonviolent mass only limited military options against Israel. At the same mobilization on a scale not seen since the late 1930s. time, the Palestinian national movement reached its international peak with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Nevertheless, the PLO proved incapable of capitalizing Arafat’s speech to the UN General Assembly in 1974, on the local and global success of the First Intifada. with the PLO by now recognized as the sole legitimate Ultimately, the exiled PLO leadership placed its representative of the Palestinian people. That year the own interests, chiefly its ambition for Western and PLO also began laying the groundwork for a two-state particularly American endorsement, above the national settlement when its parliament, the Palestine National rights of the Palestinian people as expressed in the 1988 Council, adopted a 10-point plan to establish a “national Declaration of Independence adopted in Algiers. authority” on any part of Palestine that was liberated. These contradictions became unambiguous in 1992- 93, when the Palestinian leadership had to make a “The 1967 choice between supporting the negotiating position of the Palestinian delegation in Washington, which War transformed Israel insisted on a comprehensive moratorium on activity as a precondition for transitional from a regional state into self-government arrangements, and covert negotiations with Israel that gave it much less but restored it to a regional power.” international relevance in the wake of the 1990-91 conflict. Pursuant to the 1993 Oslo Accords, the The process was of necessity painfully slow as it brought PLO recognized Israel and its “right to exist in peace the majority of Palestinians to the recognition that an and security” in the context of a document that failed eventual Palestinian state would no longer be established to mention occupation, self-determination, statehood, on the totality of the former British Mandate. As of or the . Unsurprisingly the decades 1974 the acceptance of the reality of Israel as a state since have seen an exponential acceleration of Israeli and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West settler-colonialism and the effective destruction of the Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip was autonomy arrangements specified in various Israeli- to gradually become the goal of the Palestinian national Palestinian agreements. movement. Looking Forward The late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977, which culminated in the 1979 Camp In some respects the situation today has come full circle David Accords and Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai since 1967. The broadly unified Palestinian national Peninsula, completed in April 1982, set the stage for movement that predominated from the 1960s to the Israel’s invasion of Lebanon that same year. Israel’s 1990s has disintegrated, perhaps terminally so. It is main goal was to the PLO out of the country and today split between Fatah and Hamas, with the latter, consolidate permanent occupation of the Occupied along with Islamic Jihad, as yet excluded from the PLO, Palestinian Territory (OPT). With the most powerful while splits within Fatah and the PLO are rife. The Arab state removed from the conflict, the ability of Palestinians in Gaza are suffering horrendously under the PLO to achieve a two-state settlement was severely a decade of Israeli blockade that is getting worse on circumscribed, and the Arab-Israeli conflict gradually account of PA and Israeli pressure on Hamas. The metamorphosed into an Israeli-Palestinian one vastly Palestinians in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon are more advantageous to Israel. suffering greatly from the civil strife in Syria and the earlier fragmentation of Iraq, as well as from conflicts As the PLO tried to regroup in Tunisia and other between different groups in the camps. Arab countries, one of the biggest challenges to Israel emerged within the OPT with the eruption of the First

16 As for Israel, 1967 transformed it from a regional state the global Palestine solidarity movement, including the into a regional power. It is eager to normalize relations Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions with and the Arab Gulf states, using Iran Movement (BDS) launched in 2005, has grown rapidly, as the bogeyman to nurture that relationship. In turn, particularly in the wake of Israel’s repeated assaults it wants to use that alliance to impose a deal on the on the Gaza Strip. This is in contrast to the situation Palestinians that would effectively perpetuate Israeli in the 1970s and 80s, when Western publics tended to domination, achieving a final peace treaty whereby be broadly supportive of Israel. Israel is ferociously it would keep security control throughout the OPT, pushing back against this movement by conflating maintain its settlements, and continue to colonize. criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, and by pushing legislation in the US and Europe to ban boycott But there continue to be obstacles in Israel’s path to initiatives. As yet, however, it has not succeeded in legitimizing the occupation, which keep the door open shutting down the debate or in preventing churches and for a Palestinian movement and strategy to secure rights student groups across the US from supporting activities and justice. It is no small feat that, during a period in solidarity with the Palestinian people. comprising half a century, not one state has formally endorsed Israel’s occupation of Palestinian – or Syrian – territory. While European governments, for example, “It is impossible to feared that doing so would endanger their relationships with others in region, they are also among the most pretend that Israel committed to upholding a rules-based international order; the memories of the First and Second World subscribes to either Wars have not been forgotten. They thus cannot recognize Israel’s occupation even though they have universal or ‘Western’ failed to challenge Israel in the same way they have confronted the Russian occupation of Crimea. values.”

Israel’s pushback is also weakened as a result of a third “Israel is pushing back trend that is entirely of its own making. The fact that it has been able to violate international law unchallenged against BDS by conflating in its occupation of the , as well as with its own Palestinian citizens, is leading to overreach. criticism of Israel with Even Trump’s determination to “do a deal” that would anti-Semitism.” certainly give Israel vast tracts of Palestinian land and permanent security control is likely to hit up against the increasingly powerful right-wing movement, which Moreover, the election of Donald Trump as US rejects on principle any concession to the Palestinians. president soon after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union last year is hastening the European Indeed, the growing raft of what can only be described Union’s determination to consolidate its economic as racist laws is exposing not just its present acts but and political power and reduce its dependence on also those of the pre- and early post-1948 era. For the US for protection. This offers an opportunity for example, to name just a few, the citizenship and family the Palestinians to bolster modest EU measures such law, renewed annually since 2003, denies Palestinian as prohibiting research funding to Israeli settlement citizens of Israel the right to marry Palestinians from the enterprises and labeling settlement products, and to OPT as well as several other countries; the continued push for differentiation between Israel and its colonial destruction of Palestinian villages within Israel as well as enterprise, drawing on the language of UN Security the West Bank; and the law to retroactively legalize the Council Resolution 2334 of December 2016. theft of private Palestinian land in the West Bank. All this makes it impossible to pretend that Israel subscribes Israel is also facing resistance in unexpected places. to either universal or “Western” values, such as the rule As the Palestinian national movement has weakened, of law and equality.

17 A good indicator of the impact of this exposure is the fast-growing number of non-Israeli Jews that are becoming increasingly estranged from Israel, including such organizations as Jewish Voice for Peace. When they speak up, pro forma accusations of anti-Semitism are easily deflected, and they empower others to take similar positions.

Another area where Israel has overreached has been in making support for it a partisan issue. As the Republican Party ensures there is no daylight between itself and Israel, opinion in the Democratic Party’s rank-and- file shifts steadily in support of Palestinian rights, and Democratic representatives are slowly becoming emboldened to speak up.

These longer-term trends that work against Israel’s violations of international norms cannot by themselves secure Palestinian rights. The shift from Arab custodianship over the question of Palestine to Palestinian custodianship ultimately resulted in the disaster of Oslo. What is needed is a formula to combine Palestinian mobilization at home and abroad with an Arab strategy to achieve self-determination. And, although efforts to reform the PLO into an effective national representative have failed to date, there are ways to apply pressure on parts of the PLO that still function – for example, in countries where some segments of Palestinian diplomatic representation are still effective – with a view to reviving the national agenda and strategy.

The Palestinians today are without doubt in the most unenviable position they have experienced since 1948. Yet if they mobilize the resources at their disposal – first and foremost their own people and the growing reservoir of global support for their rights and freedom – they can yet formulate and successfully implement a strategy to secure their place in the sun.

18 Chapter Two The Refugees’ Long Path to 2018

The forcible displacement of Palestinians has been the cornerstone of Israel’s drive to create a Jewish state, leading not only to millions of refugees and exiles but also to internal refugees within Israel dating from the Nakba. Refugeehood is imbued with physical insecurity and loss, as well as the risk of repeated dispossession and displacement, as many Palestinians have been forced to keep moving. In addition to the refugees who were driven by or fled from Israel to what is now the OPT, many Palestinians have been displaced by Israel’s colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These struggles are covered in the pieces below, which also touch on the political challenges Palestinians have faced in striving for their rights using other countries as a base, as well as being forced to take sides in conflicts such as in Lebanon and Syria. This section includes three pieces that discuss the ways in which refugees continue to be created, and the trials they face

Decades of Displacing Palestinians: How Israel Does It By 2011, Israel was estimated to have forcibly displaced some 66% of the Palestinian population. Munir Nuseibah identifies six methods Israel uses on both sides of the Green Line and zeroes in on two: personal status engineering and urban planning. He calls for a holistic approach to address the systematic nature of forced displacement.

Unwelcome Guests: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon The precarious nature of refugee existence, already dire in the immediate aftermath of becoming a refugee, is compounded by the prolongation of this status. Dalal Yassine discusses the denial of basic Palestinian refugee rights for 70 years, and urges greater coordination between Palestinian and Lebanese civil society organizations to change the country’s laws.

From Our Facebook Balconies, the Dark Heart of Yarmuk The tragedy of the created millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, including some 270,000 Palestinians from Syria. Ahmad Diab discusses the siege of Al-Yarmuk from a Syrian-Palestinian perspective, describing the camp as a new symbol of Palestinian suffering and mapping the effects of the conflict on the entire Syrian Palestinian community. 19 Decades of Displacing Palestinians: How Israel Does It

by Munir Nuseibah June 2013

Overview makes no mention of thousands of other displaced victims eligible for redress. (Needless to say, the rights Most discussion of Palestinian dispossession – including of the refugees have not been addressed nor have any by Palestinians themselves – focuses on the 1948 Nakba remedies been offered.) and the forced exile of more than 700,000 Palestinians by Zionist forces intent on creating an Israeli state in It is common, in the rights-based approach literature to mandate Palestine. However, the various measures that focus on war refugees separately from other waves of Israel has used to forcibly displace Palestinians since displacement. In the Palestinian context, however, it is 1948 have received far less attention even though it vital to situate war refugees within the macro-picture is estimated that it has forcibly displaced 66% of the of the conflict. As Raef Zreik notes, “the Palestinians whole Palestinian population1 as part of its deliberate, have lost not only their rights and their land, but also longstanding plan to create and maintain a Jewish the context that enables them to demand these rights in majority. a way that makes sense.”3 The Palestinian refugees of 1947-48 and 1967 cannot “just” be seen as war refugees. Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Munir Nuseibah has They are victims of a racist policy of population identified six of the methods Israel uses to displace transfer implemented under the cover of war and other Palestinians, and discusses two – displacement by sets of victims have been created in line with the same personal status engineering as well as by urban planning. macro-policy. He argues that the traditional human rights approach to the conflict is not enough. Rather, he calls on human The application of a transitional justice framework to rights advocates and organizations to apply the more the Palestinian-Israeli context can address the recently developed transitional justice approach to missing context Zreik identifies. The transitional justice deal with the mass human rights violations carried out framework has now been used in other conflicts but it as a matter of policy, as this is the only way toward has been not sufficiently studied in the case of Palestine, meaningful redress and just peace. even though it offers a way to comprehensively redress the victims of gross human rights violations, as will be The Missing Context for Claiming Rights discussed in the final section of this policy brief.

As shown in archival research conducted by the Israeli Israel’s Six Methods of Forcible , senior leaders of the Zionist movement Displacement have long advocated the “transfer” of Palestinians in order to secure a Jewish majority in an area of land Israel has utilized its legal system and institutions from where Jews were the minority. The founders of the the day it was established to this day in order to State of Israel and their heirs translated these calls into inflict forced displacement within the Occupied policy and practice using a variety of methods that Palestinian Territory (OPT) as well as within Israel. Its 2 continue to the present day. Yet Israel’s motives and methods can be divided into at least six general the systematic nature of population transfer have not categories and have led to permanent displacement of been addressed. For example, the 1993 Declaration of Palestinians from both sides of the Green Line. Principles between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which makes reference to “refugees” as 1. The use of violence during times of war as one of the issues for permanent status negotiations, 20 happened during the wars of 1948, 1956 and 1967, conquered during the war into a majority. It introduced which created one of the most complicated refugee discriminatory citizenship laws in a way that would problems in the world as well as a significant number exclude all the refugees from acquiring its citizenship. of internally displaced persons. Two laws regulated Israeli citizenship: the Law of Return of 1950 and the Citizenship Law of 1952. 2. Engineering of personal statuses in Israel and the Together, the two statutes gave all Jews around the OPT in a way that excludes habitual residents, or world the privileged status of Jewish “nationals” of persons who should be entitled to residency rights, Israel with the right to immigrate to Israel and become from the right to live in their homes. full citizens, while according “citizenship” to Palestinians who had remained in Israel.6 The laws excluded all 3. Discriminatory urban and country planning that Palestinian refugees although they had been residing encourages Jewish expansion and suppresses in the area that became Israel for centuries before the Palestinian construction in certain areas such as establishment of the state.7 Israel’s 1954 Prevention of Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Negev desert. Infiltration (Offences and Jurisdiction) Law also served As a result, homes and even whole villages are to criminalize any attempted return of a refugee to his/ demolished as “illegal constructions.” her home.

4. Dispossessing Palestinians of their property under In the aftermath of the 1967 war, Israel introduced discriminatory laws and regulations that result in similar measures through the military-legal system by the forced eviction of families from their places of which it managed the occupation. Shortly after the war, residence. during which around one third of the population was displaced,8 Israel took a census9 in the OPT. It then 5. Deportations under security justifications and introduced a new system of Palestinian residency10 emergency law. This method was extensively used that excluded anyone who was not part of this census in the OPT at the start of the occupation and is still regardless of his or her links to the OPT. Israel then being used from time to time. enacted a number of “prevention of infiltration” military orders that criminalized any unauthorized 6. Creating unbearable circumstances in certain areas return in a way that was almost identical to the above- that eventually drive the civilian population to leave mentioned 1954 law, thus cementing the displacement their homes and move to other areas. Examples of the 1967 refugees. of this pattern include Sheikh Sa’ad village4 in Jerusalem and Al-Nu’man village5 in the West Bank The policy of defining new rules for residency and then where both communities were suffocated by the criminalizing any Palestinian who attempted to return construction of the Separation Wall. to his/her home was not the end of Israel’s personal status engineering. Following its occupation of the West All six methods of displacement have contributed to the Bank and Gaza, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and forcible removal of the Palestinian civilian population introduced three different types of residency status for either internally within the borders of Palestine/Israel the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The or across international borders. It is estimated that by inhabitants of the OPT who were counted in the census the end of 2011 Israel had forcibly displaced around received Israeli-issued identification cards (ID cards) 66% of the whole Palestinian population. Two of the with three different colors: Red for the Gaza Strip, methods Israel has used – personal status engineering orange for the West Bank and blue for East Jerusalem. and urban planning – are examined in more detail below. The inhabitants of East Jerusalem were given an Israeli permanent residency status and were ruled under Israeli Displacement by Personal Status domestic law and legal jurisdiction, while the rest of the Engineering inhabitants were considered residents of their territories and were ruled under an Israeli military regime. In the aftermath of the 1948 war Israel used personal Both legal systems included ways to revoke the residency status definitions to make the demographic changes status. In the West Bank and Gaza, exit permits with an needed to turn the Jewish minority in the areas it had 21 expiry date were given to those who travelled abroad. For example, they only include partial data for 1967 – If the traveler failed to return before the expiry of the 1990 as noted by the Israeli Interior Ministry itself.14 permit, his/her status would be assigned as “ceased Moreover, the harsh “center of life” policy has and is residency”11 and they would not be allowed to return. being rigorously applied. This policy of residency revocation stopped in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the beginning of the peace In addition to revocation of residency, Israel has also process. introduced limits on child registration. These limits apply not just to residents of East Jerusalem, the West In East Jerusalem, the residency revocation policy Bank and Gaza; they also apply to the Palestinian was similar in its effect to the one in the West Bank citizens of Israel. Regarding its own citizens, Israel and Gaza, although it functioned according to Israeli prevents the automatic granting of citizenship to domestic legal jurisdiction, not military law. Jerusalemites children of Israeli citizens born abroad. Although this also needed exit permits when they travelled abroad and applies to Jewish and non-Jewish citizens alike, a Jewish they lost their residency status if they failed to return child can always acquire his citizenship by virtue of before the expiry of the permit. However, unlike the “return”, whereas a non- Jewish infant does not enjoy residents of the West bank and Gaza, the peace process this right. did not provide any protection for Jerusalem residents. On the contrary, Israel evolved the legal framework in The conditions ruling registration of Jerusalem a way that facilitated an accelerating rate of residency children are more complicated and restrictive. Since the revocations. Palestinian inhabitants of Jerusalem are not citizens of Israel, they cannot automatically pass their residency Prior to the peace process, Israel used to revoke the on to their children. Between 1967 and 1994, the Israeli residency status of Jerusalemites when they were Ministry of Interior refused to register the children considered to have “left Israel and settled in a country of female residents on the basis that children should outside Israel.”12 The Entry into Israel Regulations take their father’s status. Currently, if both parents are defined a settlement outside Israel for the purposes residents, the Ministry of Interior registers the child, but of revocation as: living abroad for 7 years, receiving this is not granted as a right. In fact, Israel has steadily a residency status in a foreign country, or receiving a increased the restrictions on giving children permanent citizenship in that country by naturalization. Residence residency status in cases where only one parent is a in the West Bank and Gaza was not considered a resident and where the child was born abroad, thus settlement outside Israel. effectively reducing the number of Jerusalemite children registered. In 2002, Israel started to handle Once the peace process started, however, Israel the applications to register Jerusalemite children born suddenly changed the revocation rules without abroad as family unification cases, which was also the introducing any official legal amendments and without case in the West Bank and Gaza. warning the public. Suddenly, it started using a new criterion to interpret one’s residence outside Israel At the same time, the Israeli government decided to stop known as the “center of life.” According to this new processing family unification applications by Palestinian policy, if it were shown that the Jerusalemite’s “center of citizens of Israel as well as by Palestinian Jerusalemites life” was outside Israel, then he/she would be liable to to be joined by their Palestinian spouses from the West have his/her residency revoked. Even worse, residence Bank or Gaza Strip. Israel also made it more difficult in the West Bank or Gaza Strip was considered to be to register a child who was born in Israel if only one residence abroad, putting the residency of thousands of his parents was a resident, a policy that further of Palestinians who had established their homes in affected Jerusalemites. A Palestinian non-governmental the suburbs of Jerusalem in danger. According to organization estimated in 2003 that these restrictions figures provided by the Israeli Ministry of Interior, the had resulted in more than 10,000 unregistered children residencies of 14,152 Palestinians had been revoked13 in East Jerusalem, but there is no other source of data between 1967 and 2011, more than 11,000 after the regarding the outcome of this under-reported tool for beginning of the peace process. These figures greatly the forced displacement of Palestinians. It should be understate the Palestinian loss of residency rights. noted that similar restrictions were introduced to the

22 registration of children in the West Bank and Gaza even such constructions, causing forced displacement of the after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994. inhabitants.

Displacement by Urban Planning A Systematic Policy of Forced Displacement from the Start Urban planning is another method that Israel has used consistently on both sides of the Green Line from the As seen in the above discussion and in the examples establishment of the state to the present day to displace given of methods of displacement, Israel’s Palestinians and replace them with Jewish colonists. discriminatory policy of forced displacement of In the Negev desert, for example, the majority of the Palestinians has been systematic and continuous, and is civilian population was displaced during the 1948 war grounded in the very ethos of the establishment of the and as a result of forced displacements during the 1950s. state. The significance of this understanding will come Yet Israel is still targeting the residents of this area and into play when a genuine peace process is launched. town planning is currently the method of choice. The In the Palestinian context, there is no justification to Israeli government has refused to recognize dozens of focus on war refugees and to ignore the victims of the Palestinian Bedouin villages and towns, some of which various methods of displacement, all of which feed were in existence before 1948, while others had been into a deliberate overarching policy to forcibly replace established as a result of Israel’s previous displacement the indigenous inhabitants by colonizers from among policies. It is determined to implement a plan that would Israel’s existing Jewish population or recent Jewish result in the destruction of some 35 Bedouin villages15 immigrants. and to forcibly displace the Bedouin into concentrated spaces, “developing” the area for Jewish expansion. A genuine peace process will make it necessary to move beyond the traditional human rights framework It is worth noting that the Bedouin are also among the and to apply a transitional justice one to the Israeli- Palestinian population groups displaced in the OPT to Palestinian conflict. The transitional justice framework make way for Jewish colonization that is illegal under offers a holistic approach not just to provide measures international law. The Bedouin have been continuously of redress but also to enable the identification of displaced from around Jerusalem, for example, in order the human rights violations that must be redressed. to expand the Ma’ale Adumim settlement which holds For example, in Timor-Leste, the Truth Commission some 40,000 Jewish colonists. The Israeli Government had a comprehensive mandate that required it to plans to further expand the settlement in the direction investigate the “context, causes, antecedents, motives of Jerusalem. This will displace the Jahhalin Bedouin and perspectives which led to the violations” as well who had already been previously displaced from Tal as “whether they were part of a systematic pattern or ‘Arad in the Negev. abuse” and “whether they were the result of deliberate planning, policy or authorisation on the part of the state, Much has been written about Israel’s colonization of political groups, militia groups, liberation movements or the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which uses urban other groups or individuals.”17 planning methods similar to the ones described above, but is worth noting the particularly important role urban Without such a comprehensive understanding of the planning plays in displacing Palestinians in illegally violations, it would be impossible to meaningfully annexed East Jerusalem. Since the beginning of the redress the victims of human rights violations and 1967 occupation, Israel has confiscated 35% of the to stop the crimes. In addition to the myriad other Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem and allocated them to problems associated with it, the Oslo “peace process” Jewish colonization. Israel has also used zoning policies totally ignored many of the methods and waves of to declare 22% of Palestinian land as “green areas” on deportation and transfer of civilians; indeed, forced which Palestinians were not allowed to build. Currently, displacement actually increased after the peace process only 13% of the total area16 of East Jerusalem is zoned started. for Palestinian construction, and most of it is already built and inhabited. Israel considers any construction Human rights organizations, academics, and without a permit “illegal” and frequently demolishes practitioners should redraw the picture as they identify 23 the elements that should be tackled in a transitional in the census of 1952; (3) was an “inhabitant of phase to peace and justice in the Israeli-Palestinian Israel;” and (4) was physically present in Israel conflict. The comprehensive examination of the human or entered it “legally” between the time of the rights violations is essential not only to understand establishment of the state until the enactment of them per se but also to prescribe the appropriate the law. This effectively excluded the hundreds remedies, including the legal and institutional reforms of thousands of Palestinians who were forced to that are essential to meaningful redress, as is clear from become refugees. examples given above. The mistakes of Oslo must not be repeated: No peace can ever be established while 8. See: http://www.badil.org/en/press-releases/142- discriminatory laws and institutions are engaged in 2012/3638-press-eng-53 producing an ever greater number of victims. 9. See: http://www.hrw.org/wp-content/ uploads/2014/05/reports/iopt0212webwcover.pdf

10. See: http://www.hrw.org/wp-content/ Endnotes uploads/2014/05/reports/iopt0212webwcover.pdf

1. See: http://www.badil.org/en/press-releases/142- 11. See: http://www.hamoked.org/document. 2012/3638-press-eng-53 aspx?did=updates1175

2. As Nur Masalha wrote, “the notion of transfer was 12. Entry into Israel Regulations (1974), Article 11 born almost at the same time as political Zionism itself, with Herzl’s hope to ‘spirit the penniless 13. See: http://www.btselem.org/jerusalem/revocation_ population across the border.’” Expulsion of the statistics Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought 1882-1948 (Washington: Institute for 14. For a comprehensive account of Israel’s draconian Palestine Studies, 1992), 207. policies toward Palestinian residency rights see http://www.civiccoalition-jerusalem.org/human- 3. “Palestine, and the Rights Discourse,” rights-resources/publications/reports/israeli-laws- Journal of Palestine Studies 34, no. 1 (October 1, 2004): and-policies-denying-palestinians-right-fre 78. 15. See: http://adalah.org/ 4. See: http://www.btselem.org/publications/ eng/?mod=articles&ID=1589 summaries/200402_sheikh_saed 16. See: http://civiccoalition-jerusalem.org/system/ 5. See: http://www.alhaq.org/publications/ files/urban_planning_in_jerusalem_final.pdf publications-index/item/al-nu-man-village-a-case- study-of-indirect-forcible-transfer 17. Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor, Part 2: Mandate of the 6. Israel granted citizenship to most of those who Commission, Chega! Final Report of the Reception, remained on its territory after the war. However, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor, 2005, 2. it granted different categories of citizenship based on one’s “nationality,” including Jewish, Arab, Armenian, Druze, To this day, the Israeli legal system determines some rights based on one’s “nationality.”

7. One could acquire citizenship by residence if he/ she: (1) had been a Palestinian citizen before the establishment of the state of Israel; (2) was counted

24 Unwelcome Guests: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon

by Dalal Yassine July 2010

Overview for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) stated that there were currently 425,640 Palestinian refugees living in Before the 1982 Israeli invasion, Lebanon was the Lebanon. Of these, 53% reside in 12 official refugee center of the Palestinian national movement. Today, camps, while the remainder lives in Lebanese cities however, the country’s Palestinian refugee community and villages as well as in unofficial refugee camps or is considered among the most marginalized in the “Palestinian gatherings.”2 However, UNRWA’s statistics . Last month, the Lebanese are incomplete as they do not include unregistered parliament addressed the issue of the refugees’ rights Palestinian refugees who came to Lebanon between but the draft bill was referred back to committee. In 1952 and 1956 or those who entered the country after response, several prominent Lebanese politicians, 1970 and are considered “undocumented” Palestinians.3 including Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, warned about the implications of denying Palestinian refugees their Lebanese-Palestinian relations have fluctuated over the human rights, and the Palestinian community and their years. Lebanon’s early embrace of the refugees was Lebanese allies held large demonstrations across the quickly overshadowed by security concerns: The camps country on June 27. Al-Shabaka policy advisor Dalal were viewed as security zones that could explode at any Yassine examines the legal status of Palestinian refugees moment. The Deuxieme Bureau (military intelligence) and in Lebanon and argues that the country’s institutional Lebanese police established a presence within the camps not only deprives Palestinian refugees of to control the refugees and monitor political activities. their human rights but also serves to undermine the In 1959, the Ministry of the Interior established a right of return. She also discusses “The Right to Directorate to administer Palestinian refugee affairs Work” campaign and contends that it is an example and coordinate with UNRWA on the provision of aid of coordination between Palestinian and Lebanese and assistance to Palestinian refugees, issuing travel civil society organizations that solidarity groups in documents, and facilitating requests to reunite divided the Palestinian Diaspora should emulate in order to families.4 In reality, the Directorate’s goal was to ensure overcome Lebanese political intransigence. the public interest of the Lebanese state, in particular to oversee the services that required the payment Lebanese-Palestinian Relations of fees which benefited the Lebanese government.5 Within the refugee camps, the Directorate’s role was The creation of the Palestinian refugee population was a related to political and security issues, while the needs direct consequence of the establishment of the state of and requirements of the Palestinian refugees, whether Israel in 1948. From 1947-1950, in what Palestinians call economic, social, cultural or political, were neglected. the Nakba, or the catastrophe, Zionist militias (and later the Israeli army) expelled or instigated the flight of over The situation changed with the rise of the Palestinian 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. Roughly 100,000 resistance movement in the 1960s and the conclusion Palestinian refugees sought shelter in Lebanon as a result of the 1969 between the Palestinian of the Nakba and their presence was deemed a threat to Liberation Organization (PLO) and Lebanon, which the country’s tenuous sectarian political system.1 Over regulated the Palestinian civil and military presence in 60 years later, the government of Lebanon still does the country. After the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, not provide publicly available statistics for Palestinian the PLO withdrew from most of the country and its refugees in the country. In its January 2010 statistics office was closed. Lebanon unilaterally nullified the report, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency Cairo Agreement in 1987 but did not identify any 25 other framework to regulate relations between the two Palestinian refugees are subject to the legal regulations sides. As a result, a series of policies, laws and practices governing foreign workers, including the principle isolated and marginalized Palestinian refugees. of reciprocity and the requirement to obtain a work In 2005, Lebanon sought to improve relations with permit.10 As there is no with official Palestinians within its borders and transcend past diplomatic relations and reciprocity agreements with differences. The Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Lebanon, this immediately creates an obstacle that Committee (LPDC) was formed with a mandate to prevents Palestinian refugees from obtaining work address matters related to the social and economic well- permits, especially within professional associations. This being and security of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon regulation exists and is enforced in Lebanon despite the and to formalize relations between Lebanon and fact that Article 7 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Palestine.6 This included establishing official diplomatic Status of Refugees exempts refugees from the principle relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and of reciprocity and allows them to work without a permit reopening the PLO office on May 15, 2006, as well as three years after they establish residence in the country initiating dialogue with the different Palestinian political of asylum. factions. Palestinian students are denied enrollment in public However, the LPDC did not realize its other basic goal, educational facilities since Lebanese law requires that namely addressing the humanitarian situation of the students be Lebanese citizens.11 Although Palestinian Palestinian refugees. As an excuse, the LPDC often refugees may obtain educational degrees from private cited the lack of a single Palestinian representative schools and universities in any field, they are forbidden authority to dialogue with regarding the humanitarian from practicing in over 20 different professions. This issues. Yet despite their internal political differences, includes medicine, law, engineering, and pharmacy. In Palestinian factions agree that the humanitarian situation addition, they cannot work in professions that require of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon must be improved.7 affiliation to a particular syndicate because the bylaws Thus, while the LPDC succeeded in rebuilding ties of such organizations require that their members hold between Lebanese and Palestinian officials, relations Lebanese citizenship or provide for reciprocity.12 between the two communities inside Lebanon are still marked by a lack of trust. After the 1989 Taif Agreement, which ended the , Lebanon did not address the Legal and Institutional Barriers refugees’ human rights, excluding them from the national reconciliation process and the General Amnesty Lebanon considers the Palestinians in its territory to Law. 13 As a result, the difficult living conditions inside be refugees under the care of UNRWA and other and outside the refugee camps continued. Lebanon humanitarian organizations. However, this does not argued that any improvements in the refugees’ status nullify the responsibility of the Lebanese state, which or provisions for their human rights would encourage has ratified international and regional human rights resettlement and make the Palestinians abandon their declarations, charters and conventions.8 Effectively right to return to their homes in historic Palestine. the state has disavowed most legal and humanitarian Indeed, the lack of official Western interest in commitments to the Palestinians residing in its territory. supporting the Palestinian right of return roused fears Lebanese laws and regulations do not provide any among Lebanese political factions that foreign powers legal description or definition of refugees in general or would eventually impose the resettlement of Palestinian Palestinian refugees in particular. In practice, Palestinians refugees within the country.14 Statements by some Israeli, have been treated as refugees at times, and, at others, American, Canadian and even Palestinian politicians as foreigners and as persons who do not hold the exacerbated those fears and gave Lebanese political nationality of a recognized state.9 actors an excuse to resort to the issue of resettlement in order to oppose any move to improve the situation Lebanon’s laws and ministerial decrees have erected of the Palestinian refugees.15 Underlying this political a series of legal and institutional barriers that deprive discourse is a thinly veiled attempt to protect the Palestinian refugees of the right to work, to social power and privileges enshrined in Lebanon’s sectarian security, and to join Lebanese trade unions. For example, constitution, particularly among certain segments of the

26 country’s Christian population. amendment would have allowed children born to Lebanese mothers to obtain nationality. However, the For example, in 1994 some Lebanese political factions Committee’s proposed bill excluded children born to objected to a project to build a Palestinian refugee a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother from the camp in al-Qurea for those displaced from the camps right to nationality, ostensibly to prevent resettlement destroyed during the Lebanese civil war, which they saw of refugees. It also excluded children born to fathers as a prelude to Palestinian resettlement.16 The linkage from countries that do not grant Lebanese children between fears of resettlement and denial of basic reciprocity. These exclusions are a flagrant violation of Palestinian rights continued to mark official Lebanese Article 7 of Lebanon’s Constitution, which states that treatment of the community. For instance, in 2001, all Lebanese are equal before the law and equally enjoy the Lebanese Parliament passed the Ownership Law, civil and political rights without any distinction. They which limits the ownership of real estate – including also violate the 1965 International Convention on the residential apartments, land and commercial properties Elimination of all Forms of Racism, to which Lebanon – to persons holding the nationality of a country is a signatory. It also violates the 1951 Convention recognized by Lebanon. The law also prohibits property relating to the Status of Refugees, which stipulates that ownership by any individual whose legal status violates the treatment of refugees in asylum countries must the constitutional provisions rejecting resettlement be better than the treatment of foreigners, although it of refugees.17 In practice, this law also abrogates the should be noted that Lebanon is a not a signatory to this Palestinians’ right to inherit property as descendants are agreement. not able to complete the registration procedures. As a result, the state confiscates the property. Thus, over six decades after the Nakba, Lebanon still denies Palestinian refugees many civil, economic, and Following Israel’s 1982 invasion and the PLO withdrawal social rights under the pretext of rejecting resettlement from Lebanon, movement to and from Palestinian and protecting the refugees’ right of return. Indeed, refugee camps, particularly those in the south, have local and international human rights organizations and been subject to strict security measures. The Lebanese non-governmental organizations (NGOs) describe Army maintains checkpoints at the entrances to most the conditions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as of the southern camps. In addition, the army strictly the most tragic of the different Palestinian refugee monitors – and restricts – building and renovation populations and affirm that their legal status is devoid materials brought into the southern camps, especially in of any regulatory protection framework.21 the Tyre region. In May 2010, Lebanese security forces also banned building materials from Beirut’s Bourj Civil Society Shows the Way al-Barajneh refugee camp based on orders from the Lebanese Ministry of Defense.18 Over the past ten years, Palestinian civil society has played a vital role in advocating for the human rights Earlier this year, the Minister of the Interior and of Palestinian refugees. Lebanese civil society groups Municipalities requested the Directorate General of have joined this effort to raise awareness of the plight Internal Security Forces to investigate unlicensed centers of the refugees and the problems and restrictions they and offices for humanitarian and social organizations face on a daily basis. Palestinian and Lebanese civil in the destroyed Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, and society groups have embarked on a series of campaigns required 23 associations to apply for licenses or risk designed to mobilize public opinion to achieve legal sanction.19 The threat was issued even though Palestinian rights. This includes a campaign to advocate the associations cannot obtain licenses under the for undocumented individuals (or “non-ID’s”), the Associations Law.20 “194” campaign initiated by Palestinian and Lebanese youth to protect the right of return, and the “Right to In early 2009, the Lebanese Parliament’s Committee on Work” campaign. Women and Children proposed a draft law to amend Article 15 of the Lebanese Nationality Law of 1925. Launched in 2005, the Right to Work campaign is Article 15 entitles every child born to a Lebanese arguably the most effective campaign to date and enjoys father to obtain Lebanese nationality. The proposed the broadest base of support. Through active lobbying

27 and advocacy, the campaign gained the support of A Call to Action over 80 Lebanese and Palestinian non-governmental organizations, trade unions, and key political figures The inability of the Lebanese Parliament to uphold its and activists. Relying on allies in the Lebanese media, responsibilities under international law demonstrates the campaign was able to generate attention across the the need for an international effort to secure Palestinian political spectrum and bring its case to the Lebanese rights and is a call to action for Palestinian solidarity Parliament. However, a recent setback in the Parliament activists worldwide. Palestinian solidarity movements reveals that the struggle for Palestinian human rights is in the diaspora should coordinate with Lebanese and still far from over. Palestinian civil society organizations to challenge and overcome the legal obstacles and restrictions in During the Lebanese Parliament’s June 15, 2010 Lebanon. This type of collaboration would involve legislative session, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) working with international organizations, Palestinian led by Waleed Jumblatt raised the subject of Palestinian activists and their allies to hold the Lebanese state civil rights. The PSP introduced four draft laws that accountable for its responsibilities as a member state of called for allowing Palestinians born on Lebanese soil the United Nations and the League of Arab States and to work, to benefit from pension plans, to receive end- as a signatory to the major international law and human of-service gratuity and medical care for work-related rights conventions. In the context of any global struggle injuries, to own one residential apartment and to own against racism, Lebanon cannot and must not be property through inheritance.22 considered an exceptional case, continuing to allege that institutional racism is necessary to protect the right of The Parliament split across sectarian lines and return for Palestinian refugees, when in fact its policies opposition and loyalist Christian Parliamentarians actively weaken this right. united to block the proposed legislation. Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri referred the draft laws back to Nor does the focus on Lebanon’s institutional racism the Administration and Justice Committee for study. detract from or negate Israel’s responsibility for the In response to the vote, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri creation of the Palestinian refugee population, its issued a stark warning stating that there would come continued refusal to live up to its responsibilities under a day when people would come to “lift the siege of international law including the right of refugees to the camps in Beirut” as they are currently sailing to lift return to their homes and compensation, its policies the siege on Gaza.23 This was echoed by international of discrimination against its own Palestinian citizens, human rights organizations with Human Rights and its system of apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Watch, for example, calling on Lebanon to “seize the Territories. Palestinian solidarity activists must recognize opportunity to end discrimination of Palestinians.”24 that the achievement of Palestinian human rights in Lebanon is not mutually exclusive from or at the Lebanon’s laws prevent the emergence of a vibrant expense of achieving Palestinian human and political Palestinian community within its borders. The rights in Israel-Palestine. Indeed, they are inextricably pauperization, ghettoization, and social marginalization linked. of the Palestinian community has led to the dispersal and fragmentation of Palestinians to other countries Lebanon can no longer justify isolating Palestinian and undercut rather than upheld their right of return.25 refugees in camps, refusing to integrate them into Moreover, Lebanon’s approach to the Palestinian society. are not merely a struggle for self-determination is based on a false “security issue” or a source of financial gain for the dichotomy between “brave” Palestinians resisting government, they have basic human rights enshrined in occupation and the “reviled” Palestinian refugees in international law which Lebanon has a duty to uphold. exile. This attitude and associated policies only serve Lebanon must pass legislation that safeguards the to aid the fragmentation of the Palestinian people and rights of Palestinians to work, social security, property create an artificial distinction between Palestine (the ownership and inheritance, , and freedom of “holy cause”) and the Palestinians (a “burden” and movement and association. The exercise of these rights “security issue”). Thereby ensuring that neither Palestine does not contradict the right of return and is not a nor the Palestinians is free. prelude to resettlement. Rather, legal protection through

28 the provision of basic services is essential to breaking country, and some even moved between more than the cycle of poverty and dependence and to strengthen one camp inside and outside Lebanon. The move to the Palestinian refugees’ capacity to work toward their take refuge in Lebanon was also the result of inter- right of return. Moreover, it contributes to building and Arab conflicts, most notably the Jordanian civil war to strengthening trust between the two sides. (“Black September”) in September 1970. In addition, some Palestinians moved to Lebanon in order to In 1948, Lebanon contributed to the drafting of the join the ranks of the national resistance movement. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.26 Over six For UNRWA’s statistics see http://www.unrwa.org/ decades later, the Hariri government’s ministerial userfiles/20100628261.pdf statement commits the government to “continue to provide human and social rights to Palestinians residing 4. Legislative Decree No. 42, issued on March 31, on Lebanese soil.”27 It is past time to put those words 1959. The name of this directorate was changed to into action. the “General Directorate of Political Affairs and Refugees” by Cabinet Decree No. 4082, issued on October 4, 2000 by the Lebanese cabinet. Endnotes 5. Article 1 of the Decree No. 3909, issued on April 1. Lebanon’s confessional system of politics is 26, 1960. enshrined in the country’s constitution. The president of the Lebanese republic must be 6. The LPDC was created by government decree on Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, October 23, 2005. Although the Committee is still and the Speaker of the Parliament a Shia Muslim. active and has a new chairman, Lebanese-Palestinian In 1949, the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon relations are also handled by Wael Abu Faour, represented roughly 10% of the country’s total Minister of State and Member of Parliament from population. As the majority of Palestinian refugees the Democratic Socialist Party. are Sunni Muslims, Christian politicians have long feared that their permanent resettlement would 7. The factions include the Alliance of Palestinian upset Lebanon’s uneasy sectarian balance. This Forces, which opposes the Oslo Agreements, and has been especially true of the Maronite Christian the PLO’s Factions Committee. political parties. For a discussion of the causes of the Palestinian refugee population see Ilan Pappé, 8. Most notable are the 1948 Universal Declaration The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, (Oxford: Oneworld, of Human Rights; the 1966 International Covenant 2006). on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; 2. UNRWA was established by UNGA 4/302 of and the 1965 Casablanca Protocol on the Treatment December 8, 1949 and commenced operations of Palestinians in Arab Countries, September 11, on May 1, 1950 with its regional headquarters in 1965. Beirut. The Agency’s role does not abrogate the responsibility of the international community 9. Dalal Yassine and Souheil el-Natour, “The Legal to pressure Israel to implement Resolution 194 Status of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon and the passed by the United Nations General Assembly on Demands of Adjustment,” (Human Development December 11, 1948, and which stipulates the return Center and the International Development Research of refugees to their homes and compensation for Centre, 2007). damages to their persons and property. 10. Article 59 of the Labor Law of Lebanon. 3. Palestinians continued to seek refuge in Lebanon after the Nakba until the late 1980s. Refugees who 11. Articles 3 and 102 of Decision No. 820, September fled their villages and cities in northern Palestine 5, 1968. It should be noted that Lebanese law allows passed through more than one host and non-host for admission of foreign-born students in the event

29 of vacancies in the school system. However, there 16. As-Safir, September, 14, 1994. The camp was to be are rarely vacancies. built with funding from the Canadian government and in agreement with the Ministry of the 12. In 2005, then Minister of Labor Trad Hamaidi, Displaced, UNRWA, and the Palestinian political issued memorandum 67/1 which declared that factions. Palestinian refugeess were an exception to the law which restricts certain professions to Lebanese 17. Law No. 296, Passed by the Lebanese Parliament citizens. In practice, this required that Palestinian April 3, 2001. refugees, like non-Lebanese citizens, acquire a permit to work in in the country. These permits, 18. Qassim Qassim, “Construction is Prohibited in whose fees vary based on the particular profession Bourj Al-Barajneh Camp.” Al-Akhbar, May 29, 2010. and position. Although Palestinian workers do not get benefits from the Lebanese state, a percentage 19. Decree of Minister of the Interior and of the work permit fee is allocated for social Municipalities Ziad Baroud, No. 4286. February security. 15, 2010. In 2007, the Lebanese army besieged and destroyed the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in 13. Article 1 of the Taif Constitution stipulates: “The northern Lebanon while fighting the militant group land of Lebanon is united and belongs to all the Fatah al-Islam, a non-Palestinian organization Lebanese. Every Lebanese is entitled to live in and with fighters from around the region. Roughly enjoy any part of the country under the supremacy 27,000 Palestinian refugees fled the camp during of the law. The people may not be categorized on the three-month siege, which was marked by the basis of any affiliation whatsoever and there indiscriminate aerial bombing and tank and artillery shall be no fragmentation, no partition, and no shelling. According to UNRWA, almost 95% of the [of Palestinians in Lebanon].” buildings and infrastructure of the camp was either completely destroyed or damaged beyond repair. 14. For examples of this trend, see Sobhi Munzer Yaghi, Three years later, the rapid reconstruction that the “An obsession that dominates Lebanese thought, Lebanese government promised the camp residents in spite of their consensus to reject it: resettlement has yet to materialize. In addition, the siege remains [of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon] a real and in effect and entry to the camp is subject prior effective plan or simply a scarecrow, a bargaining approval by the military intelligence services. See chip and blackmail?” An-Nahar, September 19, http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=144. 2008 and “11 MPs from the majority propose a constitutional amendment requiring consensus for 20. Ottoman Law on Associations 1909. The any [future] amendment in order to ensure rejection Associations Law requires that any association of resettlement of refugees,” An-Nahar, November legally registered in the country be composed 13, 2008. of Lebanese citizens. As a result, Palestinian organizations and associations in Lebanon 15. On July 13, 2005, Palestinian Authority President are formed with the assistance of Lebanese said he did not “object to Arab individuals, although they are actually run by countries granting nationality to Palestinians living in Palestinians. However, several NGOs operate their territories.” This statement sparked a clash in inside the Palestinian refugee camps without formal the Arab League between Lebanese and Palestinian registration. delegates on July 18. The Lebanese delegate emphasized his government’s refusal to grant 21. See “Amnesty International Report, 2010: The nationality to Palestinians residing in Lebanon, while State of the World’s Human Rights.” In its country the Palestinian delegate maintained that denying report on Lebanon, Amnesty International stated Palestinians the nationality of other Arab countries that Palestinian refugees “faced discriminatory laws had been a recommendation in the 1950s but was and regulations, denying them the right to inherit subsequently over-turned. property, work in around 20 professions and other basic rights,” 205. http://thereport.amnesty.org/

30 wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AIR2010_AZ_ EN.pdf#page=152

22. The PSP has previously proposed creating a ministry for Palestinian refugee affairs but it was rescinded after it was attacked by some political parties. Jumblatt explained that the PSP “proposed that the subject of Palestinian refugees be linked to a Ministry of Palestinian Refugee Affairs, but when the Party saw a flock of wolves descending on it, as some considered the Palestinian issue sectarian, it rescinded this request, because it does not want to enter the valley of wolves.” Jihad Bazi, “A Big Dream if it Happens,” As-Safir, January 14, 2010.

23. Elie al-Ferzli, “Rights of Palestinians Divide the Alliance,” As-Safir, June 16, 2010.

24. “Lebanon: Seize the Opportunity to End Discrimination Against Palestinians,” , June 18, 2010.

25. Aziza Khalidi, “Economic Participation of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon,” Najdeh Association, 2008.

26. Charles Malik, Lebanon’s representative to the UN, helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

27. See paragraph 11 of the ministerial statement, December 8, 2009.

31 From Our Facebook Balconies, the Dark Heart of Al-Yarmuk

by Ahmad Diab June 2014 If Joseph Conrad was right when he said that we live right-wing Lebanese militias in 1976 – and the next as we dream, alone, then an inverse of that statement barrel bomb attack on Palestinian communities in Syria. might carry some truth as well. Unlike life and dreams, The harrowing state of siege, preventing food and death and nightmares can be communal, as Syrian medical supplies from getting in and people from Palestinians have discovered.1 The fortunate among getting out, prompted the spokesperson for UNRWA, them can now look from their Facebook balconies into the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, the heart of darkness that they barely escaped. If they an otherwise ardently apolitical institution, to wax look long enough, they might just catch a glimpse of revolutionary4: “The lexicon of man’s inhumanity to the horror of those stuck behind. The fragmentation2 man has a new word: it’s Yarmuk. It’s a place where UN- of the Palestinian people has meant that their suffering, assisted communities are facing starvation [...] where the while ultimately collective, remains unique to the context elderly, the sick, the dying, infants are being forced to eat in which it is experienced. animal feed in the capital city of a UN member state in the 21st century as a matter of political choice.” “I used to dream of having a homeland and now I dream of the camp Indeed, since the first week of July 2013, Al-Yarmuk I used to dream of having a bigger house, and now residents have not had access5 to the basic necessities I dream of a cheap room to rent. of life. Anyone who attempts to break the siege is I used to dream of taking a relaxing vacation, and usually gunned down. Those who are wounded are left now I wish I could simply be reunited with my to die because they are not allowed to exit the camp to children and family. receive critical medical treatment. Conservative estimates I used to have my own business, and now I reveal that at least 194 civilians have lost their lives, 128 pointlessly look for a job. of whom, babies and the elderly among them, have I used to dream of the future, and now I yearn for starved to death under catastrophic conditions. Many one day of the past. residents have been arrested, tortured, and subjected I used to dream of having a stable life, and now to forced disappearance by Syrian military forces and I dream of having a stable death as there are not other pro-government groups, like the Popular Front enough graves for us. for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command I used to dream, now I am dreamless [. . .]” (PFLP-GC). Reduced to scavenging in desperation to – Mohammed Zeidan Abu Jihad3 stay alive, Al-Yarmuk residents have turned to boiling grass and eating cat and dog meat as a final resort while Before it was a Palestinian refugee camp, Al-Yarmuk was awaiting the increasingly Oslo-esque elusive settlement long known as the battle that consolidated Syria under between representatives of the Syrian government and Arab rule after the landmark defeat of the Byzantine opposition forces. Empire in 636 CE. From now on, however, it will be remembered as a site of disintegration where one of the Local Palestinian activists blame6 the Syrian regime and longest and tightest sieges in the course of the Syrian its Palestinian allies, represented mainly by the PFLP- uprising-turned civil war is taking place – a siege that GC, for the siege and many of the atrocities committed has so far seen some 160,000 of its Palestinian residents since the beginning of the uprising. Two tragedies in flee and the remaining 17,000-20,000 face starvation particular marked the beginning of the end of Al- or death from illness or injury. Al-Yarmuk now stands Yarmuk’s united position of neutrality vis-à-vis the between Tel al-Za’tar – the Palestinian refugee camp in Syrian government and the uprising in general: Popular Beirut besieged and then assaulted by Syrian-backed, marches, in the summer of 2011, to the Occupied Golan

32 Heights at the “border” of Israel on the occasions of – it was an act of rational empathetic contemplation. Al-Nakba, or “The Cataclysm,” in which some 750,000 Today, the Syrian nakba has dictated the painful Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homeland acknowledgement of several conceptual causalities upon the creation of Israel in 1948, and Al-Naksa, that can be added to the colossal human loss. During or “The Setback,” the second mass displacement of the long Ba’ath years, when Syria “championed” the Palestinians from their homeland, which accompanied Palestinian cause, Palestinian Syrians were never allowed the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.7 to be fully Palestinian – nor fully Syrian. While the state made efforts early on to integrate most Palestinians into In both cases, the regime, at that time desperate Syrian society by offering them many of the same rights to gain traction in the growing uprising against it, as Syrian nationals, except citizenship and the right to encouraged the demonstrations and facilitated access vote, this much-touted policy overlooked two facts: first, to the border by removing checkpoints and even many other Palestinians who entered Syria after the first providing transportation to the border on . wave, which occurred between 1948 and 1956, remained Yet, at their time of greatest need, when the Israeli largely right-less; and second, the totalitarian nature military unleashed lethal firepower against the unarmed and structure of the society into which the rest of the protestors, killing 26 of them, the Syrian authorities Palestinians were integrated. and the Palestinian factions that promoted the demonstrations were nowhere to be found. Only those Palestinians who fled to Syria in or before 1956 and their descendants were integrated10 into Syria’s Activists also hold the regime responsible for the aerial legal and socioeconomic frameworks. But a significant bombardment and systematic destruction of large areas number of Palestinians fled to Syria after 1956 as a of their camp, which resulted in a number of civilian result of further conflict. The Syrian state habitually deaths in December of 2012. Neither do they absolve ignores this group in analyses that seek to promote its certain Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions, who forcibly integration narrative. Those who fled to Syria during the entered the camp following the bombardment and 1967 war with Israel, from Jordan after the 1970-1971 proceeded to seize private homes and hospitals and events of Black September, from Lebanon after the abuse the residents. From day one, FSA fighters showed 1982 Israeli invasion, and from Iraq between 2006-2008 almost complete disregard for the authority structures all lack11 most of the basic rights that are extended to of Al-Yarmuk, and, in particular, showed no deference other Syrian Palestinians, such as the right to remain for its carefully calculated position. as permanent residents and the right to work without being required to obtain residence and work permits Anger was also directed at the Palestine Liberation respectively. The last group – Palestinians from Iraq – Organization (PLO)/Palestinian Authority (PA) for not was denied entry into Syria and remained in the Al-Hol doing enough to support the residents of Al-Yarmuk, desert refugee camp close to the Syrian-Iraqi border for who faced daily shelling and rapidly diminishing food years before countries as far as Brazil offered to resettle and medical supplies, all signs of the impending siege. them. It is noteworthy that all these policies were These feelings were exacerbated by the news that the adopted during the Ba’ath years, unlike the earlier, more PLO/PA’s efforts to negotiate a settlement between generous ones implemented in 1956. government and opposition forces reportedly8 displayed more concern over the fate of Assad than besieged Indeed, Palestinians who fled to Syria in or before Palestinians, thus outweighing9 its efforts to lift the siege 1956 were more fully integrated than those who came or assuage the suffering of those Syrian Palestinians later, but this group was integrated into a totalitarian unable to obtain travel visas to countries where the PA system that prevented by force any meaningful right has diplomatic representation. to free political expression for the entire population. It managed to keep self-determination at bay through The Syrian Rites of Return to Politics the combination of a ruthless security apparatus and economic policies securing minimum living standards When a Syrian gave Palestinians the name for the most for the ruled population – an economic and security traumatic cataclysm in their modern history – Al-Nakba policy not entirely dissimilar to the PA’s in the West Bank and Gaza.

33 Full integration, therefore, has equaled full cooptation tragic and the absurd. Two propositions13 sum up the and – as in most other Arab countries with Palestinian unbearable paradox of being twice displaced. As the refugee populations – the systemic subversion of siege and resulting mass displacement continue, former the emergence of strong institutional expressions of Yarmuk residents have started a unique call demanding a distinct Palestinian national identity, no different, the right to return to and from the camp – a return to in fact, to the regime’s treatment of its own Syrian the safe familiarity of the protracted camp, from the nationals. As a result, Syrian Palestinians were not free fragile makeshift shelters that they found outside the to express belonging to either Syria or Palestine beyond camp, and a return from the protracted camp to the cities the regime-sanctioned mimetic rehearsals of pan-Arab and villages in the Galilee from where they hail. sloganeerism. The Syrian model is often compared with Lebanon’s inhumane treatment of its Palestinian The latter return – the only just solution14 for Palestinian population. But what such comparisons fail to account refugees everywhere – has been made even more for is the level of political and institutional autonomy urgent given that more than half of the 500,000 Syrian available to Palestinians in Lebanon12 that result, costly Palestinians have been displaced, many for multiple and unintended as it might be, from an inverse policy of times. Furthermore, the places to which they flee ostracization and persecution. within Syria are becoming more and more dangerous. Even the relatively stable places that have so far One of the accomplishments of the Syrian uprising, been saved from the brunt of the bombardment are however, is that it has extended the right to return to increasingly becoming unsafe while being pushed to take politics for all those in Syria, including Palestinians. unequivocally pro-regime stands. Shared suffering at the hand of violence has led to the realization of both Palestinian and Syrian ideals and Outside of Syria too, relative safety comes at identities away from the rhetoric of the regime. The extraordinary human cost. Almost all of the countries scenes of a fellow demonstrator dying, the news of a that are currently accepting refugees fleeing the Syrian close friend perishing in the siege, the blood-stained conflict welcome Syrian nationals as the “good” cloth of a neighbor who is being treated in a makeshift refugees and close their borders to Syrian Palestinians field clinic, all constitute ritualistic returns to communal who are treated as the perennial “bad” refugees. The political engagement. Lebanese government previously permitted entry to nearly 53,000 Palestinians displaced from Syria who The siege of Al-Yarmuk has unearthed trans- now reside in already over-crowded and under-serviced generational memories of the first Palestinian Nakba, camps of fellow Palestinians, is now turning them kept alive by the obduracy of second- and third- away at the border, while deporting15 others. Jordan, generation refugees now witnessing, without narration meanwhile, has been denying entry to Syrian Palestinians or mediation, their camps – their neighborhoods – since early 2013. Those who managed to enter before disappear like those of their grandparents. Concurrently, that time, numbering almost 14,000, have been given the urgent need to help neighbors and protect their city a status different to that of other refugees fleeing the centers has instilled a new sense of attachment to Syria conflict in Syria. While the vast majority live with host as a site of lived memories previously nearing extinction. families or in rental properties, according to UNRWA, Thus, a new paradox has been introduced: at precisely a few hundred have been corralled into Palestinian- the moment that many Syrian Palestinians felt most only camps,16 like Cyber City, where they are reportedly attached and committed to the uprising as Syrians, their prevented from leaving. All live in extremely poor commitment was harshly and abruptly trampled on by conditions. Syrian Palestinians have also fled17 to Egypt, the FSA factions operating in the regions around and , Gaza, Turkey, and as far as Southeast Asia. later inside the camp. The ebb and flow of the horrors at home in Syria The Meaning of a New Nakba for the and Arab governments’ neglect and maltreatment of Already Dispossessed Palestinian refugees abroad has pushed many to the last frontier, both in a figurative and literal sense. Even The options available to Syrian Palestinians who are before the recent fall of Homs, obituaries of the Syrian being made refugees yet again hover between the uprising started to appear in Arab dailies, while a more 34 sober analysis18 paints a melancholy picture of the fate Al-Jish, Tiberias, and Al-Shajara. In coming to terms with of the current conflict. Amidst the fragmentation and its impermanence, the memories of al-mukhayyam for lack of coherence of the opposition forces inside and the second- and third-generation refugees are what the outside of Syria, the regime is likely to consolidate its memories of Palestine were for the first. They are not power over significant parts of the country and de a reminder of a previous place or a past life as much as facto jettison the rest. Under such a scenario, most they forge a fragmentary incoherent community amongst would end up in regime-held areas. those who lost it all, yet somehow still manage to start Forced to choose between a Yarmuk-style starvation anew anywhere they are allowed entry. Rather than and siege and a fragmented, weakening, and negligent enduring existential crises, Palestinians learn to deal with opposition, ordinary Palestinians are already caving in existence as crisis. History suggests that this is the stuff to the regime as reflected in pro-government marches of nation building. and the dissemination of propaganda. While survivalist at its core, this is a major setback for the revolutionary potential that was seen earlier in the uprising with Syrian Palestinian martyr Ahmad Kousa, one of many Palestinian community organizers and activists who sided with the Syrian uprising and coordinated with Syrian Endnotes activists from Al-Yarmuk. 1. See: http://al-shabaka.org/price-statelessness- palestinian-refugees-syria Existence as Crisis 2. See: http://al-shabaka.org/policy-brief/refugee- Like their parents in Beirut 1982 and grandparents issues/decades-displacing-palestinians-how-israel- in Jaffa in 1948, Palestinians today find themselves does-it literally being pushed19 into the sea. Ultimately as a result of Israel’s denial of the right of return for Syrian 3. See: https://www.facebook.com/mziedan1/ Palestinians – the majority of whom hail from Galilean posts/10151941428825846 towns and cities just several hours away – as well as the PLO/PA’s powerlessness to offer any meaningful 4. See: https://audioboo.fm/boos/2083702- help, Palestinians are forced to undertake long perilous starving-syrian-children-eating-boiled-grass-to- journeys on rickety boats through the Mediterranean in survive#t=8m22s search of a country that will take them. Yet, while many survive, others, who are drowning without a trace, are 5. See: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ even less fortunate than celebrated Palestinian author MDE24/008/2014/en/c18cfe4d-1254-42f2-90df- ’s fictional men who perished on e0fce7c762fc/mde240082014en.pdf similar journeys half a century ago but whose bodies remained, on a heap of rubbish, as signposts of the 6. See: http://www.palestine-studies.org/files/ communal fate that lay ahead. Yarmouk%20Refugee%20Camp/BitariFinal.pdf

Somewhere in a Nordic camp, a fortunate survivor is 7. The author has chosen to use the term “cataclysm” learning the layout of a new keyboard and a new city instead of the more common term “catastrophe” grid, starting over, alone, once again. In the boredom of to describe Al-Nakba, signifying one event that was waiting for residence papers, she may realize that being unique in the history of the Palestinian people and born in one refugee camp does not breed familiarity from which collective Palestinian suffering stems. with another. Likewise, seniority in “refugeedom” does not yield more sympathy. Perhaps she will find that the 8. See: http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/201281 ambiguity that long defined the relationship between Syrian Palestinians and the camp has finally been 9. See: http://ow.ly/xtBM30jeZLB resolved: More than a prolonged shelter for an identity in danger of disappearance or cooption, the camp, or al-mukhayyam, for Syrian Palestinians is the new Safad,

35 10. See: http://al-shabaka.org/palestinians-road-

11. See: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/ resources/palestinians_from_syria_march_2014.pdf

12. See: http://al-shabaka.org/policy-brief/refugee- issues/trapped-denial-rights-illusion-statehood-case- palestinian-refugees-leban

13. See: https://www.facebook.com/yarmok. news/photos/pb.475987315810466.- 2207520000.1399752152./613043215438208/?type= 3&theater

14. See: http://al-shabaka.org/roundtable/refugee- issues/political-agency-palestinian-return

15. See: http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/05/ lebanon-palestinians-barred-sent-syria

16. See: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ politics/2012/08/palestinian-refugees-from-syria- flummox-jordanian-humanitarian-response.html

17. See: http://www.unrwa.org/syria-crisis

18. See: http://carnegie-mec.org/2014/04/08/ melancholy-perspective-on-syria/h7fc

19. See: http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-24499890

36 Chapter Three Warning Signs Along the Road

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) faced major obstacles as it led the Palestinian struggle for rights, beginning with the need to force the world to recognize the Palestinians as a people with the right to self- determination. It then had to impose recognition of its claim to represent the entire Palestinian people, which in 1948 had been divided between Palestinian citizens of Israel, Jordanian rule of the West Bank, and Egyptian administration of Gaza, and refugees and exiles in the countries bordering Israel and far afield. The PLO achieved these aims despite many setbacks, including its expulsion from Jordan in 1970 and from Beirut in 1982.

However, the organization was unable to develop sufficient sources of power to advance its goals. It began to lose its way, particularly after its after exile from Lebanon and even more dangerously during and after the negotiation of the ill-fated Oslo Accords, which were intended to achieve the two-state solution that it had accepted as a compromise in 1988. The PLO’s failures have left the Palestinians without effective representation and at the mercy of Israel and other countries. This section includes four pieces that discuss the obstacles faced, mistakes made, and price paid in the struggle for self-determination.

The Myth of American Pressure

The PLO believed that once it achieved recognition by the United States, it would be well on the road to statehood. However, this was not on the cards. As Osamah Khalil demonstrates through his review and analysis of different eras, the behavior of US administrations fits into a broad historical pattern of public American pressure on Israel and private concessions.

How Sovereign a State?

The Oslo negotiations placed the occupied people on a par with the occupying power, making it very difficult to achieve a sovereign Palestinian state. Camille Mansour lays out this near-impossible task in his analysis of Israeli and Palestinian positions relating to key issues of sovereignty, such as armaments, alliances, crossings, borders, and Israeli military posts, and shows how far apart the two sides were even in best case scenarios.

37 Under Siege: Remembering Leningrad, Surviving Gaza

From the start of the Oslo negotiations Israel began to tighten control on the Gaza Strip. The nearly two million Palestinians of Gaza came under full siege by Israel, supported by Egypt, in 2006, with the victory of Hamas in parliamentary elections. Since then, Gaza has been the target of three massive Israeli assaults, and the siege has shredded the population’s ability to maintain any semblance of normal life and development. Ayah Abubasheer and Esther Rappaport evocatively communicate the horror of what has and is being done to Gaza. Which Jerusalem: Israel’s Little-Known Master Plans

Israel also began to separate East Jerusalem from the West Bank during the Oslo negotiations. It began to develop Jerusalem in line with its scheme of making it a majority Jewish city with a minimal Palestinian presence and to transform it into a high-tech tourist destination. Nur Arafeh’s analysis of Israel’s three master plans for the city – two of which are little-known – offers important insights into these plans and ways in which Palestinians can rebut them.

38 The Myth of American Pressure

by Osamah Khalil October 2010

Overview In accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194, Washington advocated for a substantial repatriation Recent reports that the Obama administration offered of Palestinian refugees to their homes. Israel, however, Israel a series of incentives to continue its limited ten- was reluctant to consider repatriating more than a token month moratorium on settlement building have sparked number of refugees. an outcry among Palestinians and their supporters. Although the concessions for halting the construction Israel’s intransigence at Lausanne led to a sharp of new settlements for only 60 days are unprecedented, exchange of letters between President Truman and Washington’s inability to maintain consistent pressure Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Truman on Israel fits into a much broader historical pattern. was incensed by a report that American attempts to The conventional wisdom is that when Washington negotiate an agreement were being rebuffed by Tel has exerted pressure on Israeli governments they have Aviv and that Israeli officials had informed American eventually succumbed to American demands. However, representatives that they intended to “bring about a a closer reading of the historical record and declassified change in the position” of the administration “through American archival documents reveals a more complex means available to them in the United States.”1 dynamic between the two allies. Truman’s letter warned that should Israel continue to reject America’s “friendly advice,” Washington would In this policy brief, Al-Shabaka analyst Osamah “regretfully be forced to conclude that a revision of its Khalil examines four major crises in the “special attitude toward Israel has become unavoidable.”2 relationship” between the U.S. and Israel: the 1949 Lausanne Conference; the 1956 ; the October Although the appeared to reject Truman’s 1973 War; and the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. claims, their position at Lausanne softened over the next He demonstrates that while Israel has on occasion two months, including an offer to repatriate 100,000 publicly acceded to American demands, privately it has refugees.3 However, the number was still deemed received concessions and agreements that rewarded insufficient by the Arab states and by Secretary of its intransigence and improved its negotiating position State Dean Acheson. Acheson called for the Israelis to at the expense of Palestinian rights. Khalil argues that repatriate a “substantial number” of refugees -- roughly American pressure was negligible when compared to 250,000 -- with the remainder to be resettled in the the policy options available to the different presidential neighboring Arab states where they had sought shelter administrations. Finally, he offers recommendations for and to receive some compensation.4 Palestinians and their supporters. A State Department memorandum drafted after the The Lausanne Conference Israeli reply to Truman recommended four actions for the administration to pursue, including: blocking the release of the remainder of a $100 million Export- The pattern of public American pressure and private Import loan, removing the tax-exempt status that concessions to Israel was established early on. In April U.S.-based Jewish groups enjoyed to raise funds for 1949, the Lausanne Conference was convened in order Israel, refusing Israeli requests for technical assistance to translate the separate armistice agreements between and expertise, and not supporting the Israeli position in Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Transjordan international organizations.5 Of these recommendations, signed after the 1948 Palestine War into a final peace. the Truman administration opted to delay, but not block, Among the key issues to be negotiated was the fate the release of the remainder of the loan. In addition, of over 750,000 Palestinian refugees who were either the State Department decided not to use Israel’s expelled by or fled from Zionist militias during the war.

39 application for membership to the United Nations -– a concurred with Israel’s position that it had the right to key Israeli goal -– as an opportunity to pressure Tel Aviv send ships through the Straits and an attempt by Egypt at Lausanne. Rather, Washington believed that Israel’s to renew the blockade would be an act of war, giving admission to the UN would compel concessions by the Israel the right of self-defense under the UN Charter. Arab states in the negotiations.6 The long-term implications of this agreement would be profound. As tensions increased in the spring of 1967, By late August the loan issue escalated. Responding to Nasser’s decision to close the Straits would be cited by an inquiry by the Israeli government, the Export-Import Israel as the rationale for its surprise attack on Egypt Bank replied that it had approved the loan and the delay in June 1967.10 During the Suez crisis, Lyndon Johnson was due to the State Department. Eliahu Elath, Israel’s was Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate and he opposed ambassador to the U.S., responded angrily to the news, the Eisenhower administration’s pressure on Israel to and informed an American delegation at a luncheon in withdraw from the Sinai without a peace agreement.11 Washington that such actions “could only be interpreted Eleven years later as President, Johnson was unwilling to as attempted duress.” Elath added that “such tactics repeat what he viewed as Eisenhower’s mistake.12 would not succeed. In fact, they could be expected to have the opposite result.”7 In the wake of the Suez War, Nasser’s influence grew dramatically not just in the region but across the Acheson discussed the situation with President Truman “Third World.” However, Eisenhower and Secretary the day after the luncheon. By early September, $2.35 of State John Foster Dulles were convinced that Egypt million of the $49 million was released to Israel.8 This had become an unwitting pawn of the Soviet Union amateurish attempt at diplomatic pressure was the last and were unmoved by Nasser’s claims of a policy of one the Truman administration would undertake with “positive neutrality” in the . Although publicly Israel. It would also establish a consistent pattern of aimed at preventing the influence of “International American behavior toward Israel: although Washington ” in the “general area of the Middle East,” had an array of policy options available, the Truman what became known as the had administration and its successors lacked the political will a much more specific target: containing Nasser. While to employ them effectively and consistently. Ben-Gurion’s hopes for a formal military alliance with the U.S. were never realized during the Eisenhower Suez 1956: A Successful Example? administration, due largely to American plans for a regional defense pact that was hindered by the Arab- The most prominent example of the successful Israeli conflict, the U.S. and Israel found common cause application of American pressure on Israel was during in diminishing Nasser. As Washington sought support the 1956 Suez War. Using Egyptian President Gamal throughout the region for the Eisenhower Doctrine, Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal as Israel began to develop its “periphery pact,” developing a pretext, France, Britain, and Israel jointly planned alliances with non-Arab countries, including Turkey, 13 and invaded Egypt in late October. In a rare moment Iran, and Ethiopia. of Cold War superpower agreement, Washington and Moscow demanded that the invasion end and The Kissinger Era the tripartite forces withdraw. Indeed, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration considered a series of Unlike the Suez crisis, the October 1973 War led to a actions to pressure Israel that were similar to those tense superpower showdown. The initial Egyptian and presented to President Truman. While Israel agreed to Syrian attack managed to surprise the Israeli military withdraw under American and Soviet pressure, far from causing heavy casualties, however, Israel counterattacked damaging U.S.-Israeli relations, the Suez crisis led to and eventually took the offensive. When the Egyptian closer cooperation.9 Third Army was almost encircled, Moscow threatened to intervene unless a cease-fire was declared. While the Of particular importance was the understanding reached combination of American pressure and Soviet threats between the U.S. and Israel over the Straits of Tiran, the finally forced Israel to halt its advance, Washington narrow waterway which connects the Gulf of Aqaba interceded largely because of the possibility of a and the Red Sea. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles superpower confrontation. 40 Although the cease-fire revealed how effectively political support, Ford and Kissinger abandoned the American pressure on Israel could be applied when reassessment and resumed negotiations.19 larger American interests were at risk, the U.S.-led negotiations conducted over the next two years The Sinai II agreement was signed in September, but demonstrated the implications of such actions on only after significant concessions by Washington. This Palestinian rights. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger included $2 billion in aid to Israel and abandoning any focused his efforts on Egypt, relying on “step-by- attempts for substantial negotiations on the Syrian or step” shuttle diplomacy rather than a comprehensive Jordanian fronts. In other words, Israel’s occupation negotiation involving all parties, and was reluctant of the West Bank and Golan Heights were further to expand the negotiations to include the Syrians or entrenched not to win an Israeli withdrawal from the the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).14 This Sinai Peninsula, but merely in order to establish a was more than just a tactical approach. Washington buffer zone between Israeli and Egyptian forces. In perceived Egypt to be the most prominent Soviet ally addition, Israel won a commitment from Washington in the region, and Kissinger hoped to drive a wedge to prevent future Soviet intervention in the region as between Moscow and Cairo. He found a willing partner well as placement of American civilian monitors in the in Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who also sought Sinai. Most damaging to Palestinian interests was the to break with the Soviet Union and end hostilities with secret memorandum of understanding Kissinger signed Israel.15 with Israel related to the PLO. Although the PLO was recognized by the UN and the Arab League as the “sole The negotiations were augmented by significant legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” shipments of U.S. military aid to Israel. Kissinger Washington agreed not to “recognize or negotiate argued that the aid was designed to make Israel feel with” the PLO as long as it refused to recognize more secure and willing to make concessions, especially Israel’s right to exist and rejected UN Security Council as Moscow was rearming Syria and Egypt. Yet in (UNSC) Resolutions 242 and 338.20 Kissinger’s success negotiating the second Sinai disengagement, Israel’s helped set the stage for the 1978 position hardened. Although Kissinger emphasized negotiated by President Jimmy Carter.21 the benefits of removing the most prominent and populous of the Arab states bordering Israel from Madrid 1991 the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Soviet orbit, Israeli Prime Minister was unmoved. By March From the perspective of Washington, the end of the 1975, Kissinger was frustrated by Israeli intransigence Cold War and the success of the U.S.-led coalition and returned to Washington, leading President Gerald in expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait appeared to Ford to call for a “reassessment” of U.S. policy in the offer an opportunity to finally resolve the Arab-Israeli 16 region. conflict. In the spring of 1991, Secretary of State James Baker began galvanizing support for an international Washington’s reassessment lasted roughly three months. peace conference. However, Israeli Prime Minister Although existing arms contracts were honored, was reluctant to participate in the new shipments to Israel were halted during this conference, and even more resistant to the “land for period and Kissinger met with leading foreign policy peace” formula. At the same time, Israel requested $10 specialists to discuss a new comprehensive approach billion in loan guarantees to assist with the settlement to achieving peace. However, the Israeli government of Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union. In an countered with its own pressure. In May, seventy-six attempt to pressure the Shamir government, President U.S. senators signed a letter to Ford, calling on him George H.W. Bush requested that Congress delay to be “responsive” to Israel’s request for $2.59 billion approval of the loan guarantees for 120-days. However, in military and economic aid. Ford would later write when Congressional leaders rebuffed the request, Bush that although the senators claimed the letter was held an unprecedented news conference in September “spontaneous,” that “there was no doubt in my mind where he denounced the influence of the Israel lobby 17 that it was inspired by Israel.” In his memoirs, Rabin on Capitol Hill.22 The gambit appeared to work, as would concede that the letter was the result of an Israel agreed to attend the conference as well as to the 18 Israeli public relations campaign. Without domestic presence of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation.23 41 Held at the end of October in Madrid, , the Washington, the audience was typically the Arab states conference marked the first time Israelis and Palestinians who looked to the United States as the only power would engage in direct negotiations. However, with the capable of securing concessions from Israel. On U.S. unwilling to serve as more than a facilitator of the occasion, as with Bush’s 1991 press conference, the meetings, the negotiations bogged down and eventually discussion of the Israel lobby was also for domestic became victim to the Israeli and American political consumption. Meanwhile, Israel’s attempts to exaggerate calendars. Shamir’s Likud party was voted from power American pressure have been aimed not just at its in June 1992 and the loan guarantees were eventually own domestic audience and the competition between approved by Congress in October. A month later, Bush the major political parties, but toward its American lost his bid for reelection.24 supporters as well.

Ultimately, the Madrid process would be undone not While the influence of the Israel lobby in these crisis only by American inattention and Israeli intransigence moments particularly on Congress cannot be dismissed, but also by the PLO, which chose to sign a secret it should not be overstated either. In each case, the agreement negotiated in Oslo, unbeknownst different Presidential administrations had an array of to the Palestinian negotiating team in Washington. policy options available to them, but they were unwilling Instead of demanding an end to the occupation and an or unable to muster the political will to adopt more independent state, PLO Chairman settled aggressive approaches. This behavior was often driven for an interim agreement that initially guaranteed limited by the desire of American policymakers for the most autonomy for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of politically expedient solution, dictated largely by the .25 Final status talks were to be concluded within political calendar and intensified media attention, rather five years, during which Israel was to maintain overall than a long-term resolution. As a result, Israel benefited sovereignty for the OPT.26 from the reticence of the different administrations and their pre-existing biases toward supporting the Israeli Although it is often cited as another example of position.28 Moreover, Israel used Washington’s desire to successful American pressure on Israel, in reality the achieve its strategic goals regionally and internationally Bush administration obtained few concessions from in order to obtain concessions at the expense of the Shamir’s government and even fewer tangible results. weakest party in the conflict -- the Palestinians. While the loan guarantees were delayed, they were eventually approved and the Bush administration’s American pressure on Israel has been successful attempts to freeze settlement construction were when larger American interests have been at risk. For unsuccessful. Nor did Shamir’s attendance at the example, during the 1956 and 1973 Wars in the midst conference constitute his acceptance of the “land for of the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union, peace” formula, as he admitted in an interview with the Washington had very immediate and definite interests at Israeli paper Ma’ariv after the June 1992 election. Shamir stake which required it to press its demands in earnest. explained that, “I would have carried on autonomy talks Moreover, Israel also had an interest in preventing the for ten years and meanwhile we would have reached a intervention of Soviet forces into the region, which half million people in Judea and Samaria [i.e., the West made it more receptive to American pressure. Without Bank].”27 Indeed, Shamir’s strategy has been adopted by a superpower competitor, the threat to American successive Israeli governments. interests from Israeli actions might be substantial, but from the perspective of Washington they were not Lessons Learned and Recommendations unmanageable or insurmountable. In other words, when the Palestinians and their supporters among the Arab What lessons can Palestinians and their supporters states were angered by American policies or actions draw by examining these crisis moments in U.S.-Israeli in support of Israel, once they agreed to a process relations? Perhaps most important is to differentiate mediated by the U.S. they had nowhere else to go –- and between the perception that pressure is being applied Washington knew it. This was particularly true of the by Washington and the reality. In each of the historical regimes that relied on American military and economic cases, both the U.S. and Israel had an interest in aid to secure their rule, who found that the price for overstating the political pressure brought to bear. For their participation in the peace process was an increasing 42 number of concessions demanded by Washington in settlement “freeze,” including maintaining Israeli control order to placate Israel. over the Valley, once again demonstrates Israel’s ability to secure private concessions at a time of Kissinger’s influence on today’s policymakers cannot supposedly heightened American pressure.30 be underestimated. His reliance on piecemeal, interim negotiations accompanied by high-level shuttle What then constitutes real pressure? As the Truman diplomacy has become the standard for successive and Eisenhower administrations determined, the U.S. administrations. Indeed, the apparent lesson learned is has a number of ways to pressure Israel, or any other that the U.S. State Department must appear to be actively state, which is reliant on it for military, political, and engaged, even when the results of such public activity economic support. This includes blocking or suspending are negligible. This has been repeatedly demonstrated the delivery of economic and military aid, removing the in the attempts over the past decade to revive the Oslo tax-exempt status from U.S. based for groups Peace Process, in which merely the appearance of process is that donate to Israel, denying requests for technical now considered more important than the actual process or military assistance and expertise, and withholding or achieving peace. support for Israel in international and regional organizations. To date, Washington has rarely considered While Washington was able to extract some concessions these options. Rather, it has chosen to reward Israel’s from Israel over the years, these were eclipsed intransigence with increasing amounts of aid, in the vain by Arafat’s decision to accept the deeply flawed hope that if Israel feels secure it will be willing to make Oslo Accords. Although the PLO was weak as an concessions. organization in 1993, the Palestinian cause was arguably at its height in international sympathy and support At a minimum, Palestinians and their supporters should due to the first intifada and the diplomatic efforts advocate for the U.S. to deny tax deductible status to surrounding the PLO’s acceptance of the two-state organizations that fund and support Israeli settlements solution and 1988 Declaration of Independence. Rather in the OPT. They should also continue to insist than attempting to galvanize popular support among that Washington hold Israel accountable to U.S. and its Palestinian base and internationally around its goals, international law, including continued settlement activity Arafat and the Tunis-based leadership opted for its and construction of the wall in the West Bank and East own short-term and ultimately self-defeating solution. Jerusalem, the use of American weapons on Palestinian In short, the Palestinian leadership saved itself and the civilians, the repeated violations of Palestinian human Israeli occupation at the expense of its own people rights, as well as to live up to its commitments as a inside and outside of Palestine. member of the UN and the OECD, and as a signatory to numerous international treaties. The real pressure The historical pattern described in this brief has also that Palestinians must look to and rely on is not from been observed with the Obama administration. Both Washington toward Israel, but from the Palestinian the administration and the Netanyahu government people to the world community by continuously have advanced the perception that President Obama asserting that only by realizing their rights can a just and has put unprecedented pressure on the Israelis to lasting peace be achieved. halt the construction of settlements in the OPT. Yet over the past year it has become evident that like its predecessors, the Obama administration has sought to reward Israeli intransigence and violations of Palestinian rights by increasing and expanding its support for Israel, rather than curtailing it. This included additional Endnotes funding for the “Iron Dome” project, Washington’s 1. Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter shielding of Israel at the UN after the assault on the FRUS), The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, 1949 Freedom Flotilla, and supporting Israel’s admission (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, into the Organization for Economic Cooperation 1977): 1061. http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/ and Development (OECD).29 Moreover, the recently FRUS/FRUSidx?type=goto&id=FRUS. reported concessions for a mere 60-day extension of the

43 2. FRUS, 1949, 1072-1074. http:// 10. Shlaim has a fuller discussion of these events and digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/ the negotiations between the U.S. and Israel, 178- FRUSidx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1949v06. 185. p1089&id=FRUS.FRUS1949v06&isize=M 11. FRUS, Arab-Israeli dispute, 1955-1957, 139-140. 3. FRUS, 1949, 1125. The Israeli response further Johnson dispatched a letter to Dulles stating that angered Truman, who told Undersecretary of he was “disturbed” by reports that the UN was State James E. Webb that he had informed “Jewish considering sanctions against Israel but not the leaders who had called him” that “unless they were Soviet Union. He called for “a determined effort” prepared to play the game properly and conform to by the UN and U.S. to “go to the root causes of the the rules they were probably going to lose one of troubles in the Middle East,” which included cross- their best friends.” http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/ border raids by Palestinians from Gaza. Johnson cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUSidx?type=turn&entity=FRUS. stated that “it is not utterly unreasonable for Israel FRUS1949v06.p1125&id=FRUS. to request guarantees by the United Nations that FRUS1949v06&isize=M these attacks against her will not once more be prevalent, once she has withdrawn her troops from” 4. FRUS, 1949, 1013-1015, 1207 http:// Gaza and the Sinai. http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/ digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/ cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUSidx?type=turn&entity=FRUS. FRUSidx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1949v06. FRUS195557v17.p0171&id=FRUS. p1029&id=FRUS.FRUS1949v06&isize=M. FRUS195557v17&isize=M&q1=february%2011.

5. FRUS, 1949, 1110. 12. William Quandt, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1967, Third Edition 6. Admission to the UN was a top diplomatic priority (Washington, Berkeley: Brookings Institute and for Israel in 1949. In meetings with Truman and the University of California Press, 2005): 44-52. State Department officials, the Israelis stressed Quandt discusses the influence of the Suez War on their desire to be conciliatory at Lausanne on Johnson’s perceptions of the Arab-Israeli conflict. the question of refugees but noted that UN Membership was needed to secure the precarious 13. For an analysis of the Eisenhower Doctrine, see position of the fledgling state. See FRUS, 1949, 943- Salim Yaqub, Containing : The 948 http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/ Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East, (Chapel Hill: FRUSidx?type=goto&id=FRUS. University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

7. FRUS, 1949, 1328-1331. http:// 14. As National Security Adviser during President digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/ Richard Nixon’s first term, Kissinger largely ignored FRUSidx?type=goto&id=FRUS. the Arab-Israeli conflict. Already Nixon’s most trusted advisor on foreign affairs, in the second 8. In response to complaints by the American term, serving as both Secretary of State and representative at the Lausanne conference, who National Security Adviser, Kissinger’s power and had not been notified of the decision to release influence was enhanced further by the Watergate the funds, Acheson offered a tepid defense of the crisis, which distracted the President. State Department’s actions and an empty threat that future reviews of loan allocations could occur and 15. Quandt, 133; Shlaim, 313. In the build-up to the war, that Israel should not “construe such action as either one of the signs missed (or ignored) by the United direct or indirect political pressure.” FRUS, 1949, States and Israel was the expulsion of 15,000 Soviet 1375, 1388-1389. http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/ advisers from Egypt in July 1972. Thus, relations cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUSidx?type=goto&id=FRUS. between Moscow and Cairo were already strained before the war and Sadat was even more receptive to 9. , The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World American overtures in its aftermath. (Boston: W.W. Norton, 2001): 181.

44 16. Quandt, 159-163. Among Rabin’s demands was that for an end to hostilities and the resumption of Sadat sign a separate peace and declare an end to the negotiations based on Resolution 242. state of belligerency between Egypt and Israel. 21. There is insufficient space to discuss the Camp 17. Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of David negotiations and agreement but it is Gerald R. Ford (: Harper and Collins, 1979): worth noting that the benefits to Israel and the 287. In discussing his decision for a “reassessment,” implications for Palestinian rights of the Accords Ford wrote that it “jolted the American Jewish far outweighed Israeli Prime Minister Menachem community and Israel’s many friends in Congress. Begin’s concessions under pressure by the Carter The Israeli lobby, made up of patriotic , is administration to finalize an agreement. strong, vocal and wealthy, but many of its members have a single focus. I knew I would come under 22. In his comments on the loan issue, Bush stated intense pressure soon to change our policy, but I was that “we’re up against very strong and effective, determined to hold firm.” (247). sometimes, groups that go up to the Hill working the other side of the question. We’ve got one lonely 18. Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Boston: Little, little guy down here doing it,” “Excerpts from Brown and Company, 1979): 261-263. Rabin President Bush’s News Session on Israeli Loan stated that the reassessment was “an innocent- Guarantees,” New York Times, September 13, 1991. sounding term that heralded one of the worst periods in American-Israeli relations.” While Rabin’s 23. Quandt, 303-310. assessment of the situation may have been dubious, other Israeli officials have sought to emphasize 24. Quandt, 310-317. The Madrid process was already this historical example for their own purposes. For floundering before Bush lost the 1992 election. It example, in March, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth was eventually put on hold after Israel expelled over Ahronoth reported that Israeli Ambassador Michael 400 Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Oren claimed in a call with other Israeli diplomats Territories (OPT) into southern Lebanon in that because of tensions between the Obama December. During the 1992 election, Democratic administration and the government of Israeli Prime Party candidate Governor Bill Clinton criticized Minister “Israel’s ties with the Bush’s stance on the loan guarantees. In its first nine United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 months in office, the administration of President ... a crisis of historic proportions.” “Israeli envoy Bill Clinton was focused largely on domestic issues sees „historic crisis’ with U.S.: Report,” Reuters, and was less willing to publicly pressure Rabin’s March 15, 2010 http://www.reuters.com/article/ Labor government. idUSTRE62E11O20100315. 25. See my article “Pax Americana: The United States, 19. Quandt, 163-166. the Palestinians, and the Peace Process, 1948-2008” New Centennial Review 8 (2008), for a discussion of 20. Quandt, 166-169. UNSC Resolutions 242 and the PLO’s willingness to negotiate on the issue of 338 were passed in response to the June 1967 and representation. October 1973 Wars respectively. The “land for peace” formula embodied in the resolutions has 26. The Oslo Accords and their implications on served as the framework for a peaceful settlement Palestinian rights and aspirations will be discussed in of the Arab-Israeli conflict for the past 37 years. a future policy brief, but it should be noted that the Resolution 242 called for Israel’s withdrawal from pattern observed in this brief of public U.S. pressure the occupied territories in exchange for peace with resulting in private concessions to Israel continued neighboring Arab states. Because the resolution did during the Oslo process. not mention Palestinian selfdetermination or the rights of the Palestinian refugees it was rejected by 27. An English translation of this quote was reported the PLO, but was adopted Arab states as the basis by David Hoffman, “Shamir Plan was to Stall for a peace agreement. UNSC Resolution 338 called Autonomy,” Washington Post, June 27, 1992. In an

45 interview seven years later with the Middle East Quarterly, Shamir claimed he was misquoted by Ma’ariv. Yet the interview revealed how limited his conception was of what would constitute a “comprehensive agreement” and what autonomy, if any, there would be for the Palestinians. See Daniel Pipes, “Yitzhak Shamir: A Lifetime of Activism,” Middle East Quarterly, June 1999. http://www. danielpipes.org/6331/yitzhak-shamir-a-lifetime-of- activism.

28. It should be noted that a fuller discussion of the influence of the Israel lobby on U.S. decision making is outside the scope of this brief and additional research is required in order to discuss the cultural, political, economic, and strategic factors that influence American policy toward the Arab- Israeli conflict.

29. In July, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro announced that the Obama administration was expanding the amount of security aid Israel will receive in 2010 to $2.775 billion, “the largest such request in U.S. history.” Shapiro explained that that administration hoped its “expanded commitment to Israel’s security will advance the process by helping the Israeli people seize this opportunity and take the tough decisions necessary for a comprehensive peace.” Natasha Mozgovaya, “U.S. official: More U.S. aid will help Israel make ‘tough’ decisions,” Ha’aretz, July 16, 2010 http://www.haaretz.com/news/ diplomacy-defense/u-s-official-more-u-s-aid-will- help-israel-make-tough-decisions-1.302374.

30. Mark Landler, Helene Cooper, Ethan Bronner, “U.S. Presses Israelis on Renewal of Freeze,” New York Times October 1, 2010. http://www.nytimes. com/2010/10/01/world/middleeast/01mideast. html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=obama%20settlements%20 jordan%20valley&st=cse.

31. FRUS1949v06&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&p.

46 How Sovereign a State?

by Camille Mansour April 2010

Summary Overview • Israeli position: a demilitarized Palestinian state

Since the 1980s the Palestine Liberation Organization • Palestinian position: self-defense capabilities has aimed for a sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. Drawing on The Palestinian side anticipated from the start that past Palestinian negotiating experience and the situation some restrictions would be placed on sovereignty that on the ground, this Policy Brief identifies some of the could be considered reasonable, for example restrictions areas relating to sovereignty (e.g. armaments, alliances, on certain types of armaments, on an air force or crossings, borders, Israeli military posts in the West submarines. Arguably, the Palestinians could accept 1 Bank) that Israel and the PLO would have to negotiate such restrictions. However, the state would need certain in the event that serious talks aimed at reaching a types of armaments for self-defense and for border and peace treaty are held. It develops a scenario that (1) coastline control. In addition, if it is established through compares a “moderate” Israeli position to a Palestinian negotiations and an official peace treaty, the State of stance guided by the objective of achieving a sovereign Palestine would be bound by an obligation to maintain Palestinian state and (2) discusses whether the positions law and order within its territory (i.e., to prevent the of the two sides are bridgeable. The aim of the exercise formation of non-governmental armed groups and the is to warn against pitfalls and to recommend positions violation of its own borders and those of its neighbors). and approaches, even with the knowledge that serious Yet if Israel’s concept is to prevent the possession by negotiations may not begin soon. The analysis reveals the Palestinian security services of any weapon capable how unlikely it is that a truly sovereign Palestinian state of reaching its coastal urban centers and airport, then can come about as a result of negotiations in the present no agreement would be possible on the matter. circumstances. 2. Alliances Negotiations and Sovereignty Scenario positions

Sovereignty can be defined as a government’s exclusive • Israeli position: prohibition against the Palestinian control over a territory and a people, including a State joining any alliance monopoly over the use of force. Yet in the real world, every state is bound by constraints originating in other • Palestinian position: no reference to alliances in the states. Even a superpower such as the United States treaty is subject to external – albeit minimal – constraints. States sometimes negotiate these constraints within the Restrictions on the military aspects of sovereignty framework of a treaty under which they may accept would also cover the question of alliances. Would a what they consider to be reasonable restrictions on Palestinian state be free to conclude defensive military their sovereignty. In the realm of security, the nuclear alliances with countries having normal relations with non-proliferation treaty is a good example of agreed Israel such as Egypt, or countries that do not, such as limitations by non-nuclear countries. Syria or Iran? In either case, such a position would be extremely difficult to defend in negotiations. However, 1. Armaments given that the main security risk that a Palestinian state would face after a peace treaty would originate from Scenario positions Israel itself (e.g. hot pursuit, the closing of the passage

47 between Gaza and the West Bank), the Palestinians • Israeli position: link under Israeli sovereignty would be well advised, in exchange for forfeiting their right to enter into military alliances, to make signing a • Palestinian position: physical link under Palestinian peace treaty conditional upon obtaining an international sovereignty guarantee of the territorial integrity of their State in the form of a Security Council Resolution under The passage through Israeli territory linking the West Chapter 7 of the Charter, a resolution that would also Bank and Gaza should be a “physical” link and could be solemnly endorsed by Israel, Egypt and Jordan. This take the form of a highway, a railway, a bridge, or a guarantee could be accompanied by the deployment of tunnel, or a combination thereof. It is essential for the international observers along the line between Israel and Palestinian state to have sovereignty over this link and the Palestinian State. the argument that this would cut the Israeli territory in two in the circumstances is absurd. If the link 3. Borders and Crossings Between Israel and the constitutes a compensation for an Israeli acquisition of Palestinian State a corresponding piece of land in the West Bank, then a fair quid pro quo would require Palestinian sovereignty Scenario positions over the link in parallel to Israeli sovereignty of the portion of the West Bank that it will acquire. However, • Israeli position: right of Israeli army and police to practical matters to be resolved before any agreement “hot pursuit” into Palestinian territory remain: nature of the physical link, measure of the fair quid pro quo in terms of surface-area, mechanisms • Palestinian position: right of Palestinians to freely of Palestinian exclusive control, handling of accidents visit Israeli territory and so on. Whatever these arrangements, international guarantees against Israeli interference or closure of the Like all states, a Palestinian state must have control link must be an absolutely essential component of any of its borders and crossings. The Palestinians have peace treaty. an additional interest, namely to be able to freely visit Palestinian towns and villages in Israel and also other 5. Crossings with the Outside World locations of Palestinian memory (destroyed villages, cemeteries, religious sites). I am making this point Scenario positions independently of the Palestinian right of return (an issue outside the scope of this Policy Brief). I am simply • Israeli position: Israeli and/or third-party control referring instead to the attachment of any Palestinian of people and cargo at Palestinian land, sea and air (for instance, a Palestinian whose roots belong to a terminals village or a town in the West Bank) to his/her historical homeland. For their part, the Israelis will argue for their • Palestinian position: exclusive Palestinian control right to “hot pursuit” inside the Palestinian territory against would-be violators of Israel’s sovereignty Like all states, a Palestinian state must have control of or security. The Palestinians must be aware that the its crossings with the outside world. Israel is likely to principle of sovereignty is a two-way street: it creates demand stringent forms of control at crossings under rights, but also constraints. They should vehemently the pretext that unauthorized weapons, goods or people refuse the Israeli demand (hot pursuit) under the might flow into the Palestinian state. Israel’s ideal model justification of the inviolability of their territory, is the Israeli-Palestinian agreement of November 2005 but they will be faced by Israel’s reciprocal position on crossings between Gaza and Egypt, reached a few concerning its right to strictly control its border against months after the Israeli military redeployed around the the Palestinians’ wish to cross freely to Israeli territory. strip. The agreement provided for Israeli scrutiny of passenger travel documents of passengers (exclusively 4. Gaza – West Bank Link Gaza Palestinians) via an electronic network with no physical presence at the Rafah crossing. European Scenario positions monitors acted as Israeli proxies to check luggage at Rafah terminal. The agreement also provided that goods

48 be searched by Israel at Kerem Shalom (Karam Abu threat originating from the East. The implications of Salem) before being shipped to Gaza. It is expected such demands are very grave indeed. From a political that in any future negotiations on Palestinian statehood, point of view, this would be a major infringement on the Israelis would probably attach greater importance the sovereignty of the Palestinian state and would even to seaports and airports than to land crossings (with mean that the latter is, against its will, a partner to a Jordan and Egypt). Any acceptance of Israel’s position military alliance with Israel against countries that do not regarding border arrangements would be a major threaten the Palestinian state. From a practical point of infringement on Palestinian sovereignty, although view, an observation presence on hilltops would give Palestinian negotiators could conceivably accept some birth, before or after the peace treaty, to other demands third-party presence in terminals for two or three years, such as securing roads (connecting Israeli territory to the on the condition that the Israeli side is not permitted to posts) exclusive for the Israeli military which would in interfere in the implementation of the arrangements. turn require checkpoints to control the roads, and so on.

However, if this formula is agreed upon, the Palestinians It is imperative that Palestinian negotiators are aware must keep in mind the Oslo experience, which of the short and long term implications of concessions demonstrates that interim agreements can become that are made. For example, in the Oslo agreements, the permanent arrangements. Firm, irrevocable timetables Palestinians accepted that existing settlements remain have to be provided for in the treaty, but the problem under Israeli jurisdiction during the transitional period. is that no treaty can ever be clear on all matters and the This allowed Israel, later on, to close a number of Palestinians must guard against international observers Gaza and West Bank roads that connected Israel to the siding with the post-treaty interpretations of the settlements to Palestinian traffic, to expropriate lands stronger party. Let me open a parenthesis here. The in order to build by-pass roads, and finally to expand Palestinian experience with international intervention settlements along the latter. In the tense balance between is negative, even tragic: for example, the Sabra-Shatila Israeli so-called security and Palestinian sovereignty, any massacres in September 1982 after the PLO withdrawal Palestinian concession in a peace treaty could have far- from Lebanon despite Philip Habib’s U.S. promises to reaching effects during the implementation stage. The protect the refugee camps after the PLO withdrawal; only concession that Palestinian negotiators could make and the U.S. permissiveness towards Israel’s violation of would be to accept international observers on locations the Oslo agreements (including settlement expansion). along the border for the same period specified above for Should problems arise during the implementation the crossings. Obviously, this implies that their tasks are period, they must be resolved by a binding recourse to limited to participating in the control of smuggling and arbitration if one of the two sides requests it. infiltration. As to the strategic threats that Israel fears, its airborne and land warning systems North and South of 6. Borders with Jordan the West Bank should be sufficient.

Scenario positions 7. Territorial Waters

• Israeli position: Israeli observation posts along and Scenario positions dominating the Jordan valley • Israeli position: Israeli interference on territorial • Palestinian position: no Israeli presence in the West waters Bank • Palestinian position: inviolability of territorial waters As to the border between the West Bank and Jordan, and exclusive Palestinian control which is about 100 kilometers long, Israel will insist on having observation posts along the Jordan valley and Israeli negotiators would articulate their right to inspect on hilltops dominating it.2 The Israelis would insist that suspicious ships approaching Gaza whether on the high these posts will not only guard against smuggling and sea or on the Palestinian territorial waters. Palestinian infiltration, but will also constitute a high-tech early negotiators should strictly demand that the peace treaty warning system against any land or airborne military provide for the respect of international law governing

49 maritime navigation on the high sea. Concerning of territories between the two states, economic territorial waters, they should not agree to the principle sovereignty, the refugees’ right of return, Israel’s of external interference, but should commit the insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state, etc. Palestinian authorities to inspect approaching ships when it deems it necessary and when notified of the In any case, this policy brief recommends that suspicion by any party. negotiators:

8. Airspace • Stick as closely as possible to international law and the usual implications of state sovereignty, Scenario positions • Be aware that the principle of mutuality will face • Israeli position: total Israeli control of Palestinian Palestinian sovereignty to Israeli sovereignty over airspace the lands it controls and will consequently, require Palestinian tangible, ideological and moral sacrifices; • Palestinian position: no Israeli military sorties in Palestinian airspace; arrangements according to • Negotiate as detailed a treaty as possible, and not international civil aviation agreements leave loopholes that would permit the stronger party to (mis)interpret the treaty during the There is no reason why Palestinian negotiators should implementation stage; agree to Israeli sorties in Palestinian airspace. Civilian air traffic should be accepted on a mutual basis and should • Avoid contenting themselves with the provision include the possibility of air transportation between of acceptable principles, and then agreeing to Gaza and the West Bank. substantive derogations that annul the principles in practice (as was the case in the Oslo agreements as 9. Territory well as in the so-called 2003 “Geneva Accord: Draft Permanent Status Agreement”); Scenario positions • Refuse to agree to temporary arrangements unless • Israeli position: Israeli use, in case of emergency, of unconditional timetables and deadlines are provided Palestinian land roads or airspace to conduct military for in the treaty; activities against countries in the region • Carefully involve selected third parties other than • Palestinian position: absolute inviolability of the U.S., because any third party (not only the Palestinian territory and airspace U.S.) tends to side with the stronger party during implementation; This is self-explanatory. • Make sure that Egypt and Jordan are among the Conclusions and Recommendations selected third parties;

It is clear from the various issues addressed here that • Obtain a provision in the peace treaty that a moderate Israeli vision of a Palestinian state would any difference of interpretation during the make the latter a satellite state or a protectorate at best implementation stage be submitted to arbitration by as far as sovereignty is concerned. It remains to be seen request of either party. whether in the present circumstances a peace treaty satisfactory to Palestinian sovereignty requirements could be attained. This becomes even more doubtful if we consider other issues of the negotiations agenda, whether they are related to sovereignty or not: the question of Jerusalem, crossing between the two parts of Jerusalem, dismantlement of settlements, exchange 50 Endnotes

1. See , “Thinking the Unthinkable: A Sovereign Palestinian State” Foreign Affairs, vol. 56, no. 4, July 1978.

2. This discussion does not apply to the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt since it measures only 12 km long and since the issue has been resolved de facto by the withdrawal of Israeli troops from along the border in August 2005.

51 Under Siege: Remembering Leningrad, Surviving Gaza

by Ayah Abubasheer and Esther Rappaport April 2010

In the state of siege, was under German siege for 2.5 years during World Time becomes space transfixed in its eternity, War II. Early in the siege, a fire broke out in the In the state of siege, emergency food supply storage facilities, leaving the Space becomes time that has missed its yesterday and its city essentially without food. Throughout the siege, the tomorrow. Soviet government tried to smuggle food supplies into the city via Lake Ladoga and by airplanes but because of - , Under Siege unceasing German bombardment and shelling very few of those supplies were safely delivered. The population Overview was subjected to extreme starvation, which killed around one million people. Some resorted to eating pets and How does one communicate what life is like under dead bodies, others scraped wallpaper off the walls to siege? Much has been written to describe the besieged consume the potato starch glue that had some nutrients. Gaza Strip yet Al-Shabaka Policy Member Ayah Bashir and Guest Author Esther Rappaport bring new insights Midway through the siege, a narrow pathway was and perspectives in this Roundtable. Ayah Bashir lives opened up, making it possible to evacuate the most under the siege of Gaza at the present time; Esther vulnerable population groups out of the city. This Rappaport’s family lived under the siege of Leningrad pathway, leading through the frozen Lake Ladoga, during World War II. Ayah and Esther came to know became known as The Road of Life but was also often each other through social media during the Summer referred to as The Road of Death, because it was so 2014 attack on Gaza and first thought of writing this dangerous. My grandfather, who was then about 40, piece during this war. In their reflections and analysis of died of a minor illness in besieged Leningrad, as a the two sieges they ably communicate the stark reality result of the lack of food and medical supplies, and of life under siege. The reflections of each of the two was buried in a mass grave. After his death, my mother, authors are given in their own voice. They also provide grandmother and uncles were evacuated from the city some additional factual information and background, via the Road of Life/Death with the kindergarten that and this part of their discussion, conversation, and my grandmother worked for. argument is presented in the voice of a “narrator”. Ayah Bashir: Few outsiders realize what the siege is Ayah Bashir and Esther Rappaport: We are in like. The Gaza Strip, the place where I have lived all my agreement that this text is not a normalization project. It life, has been under a brutal ongoing siege since 2007. is based on our mutual belief and political message that After Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2006, Israel, the siege as well as the illegal Israeli occupation of 1967 aided by Egypt, sealed off the passages, i.e. the six must come to an end and that Palestinian refugees must crossings with Israel and the Rafah crossing with Egypt, be able to return to their towns and villages. We strive to and tightly controlled the exit and entry of people and achieve Palestinians’ rights as enshrined in international all goods including humanitarian and medical supplies. law and we aim for equal rights for both Palestinians and Israelis. Our deprivation of our basic rights under the siege has not only been physical but also mental and What Is a Siege? Leningrad and Gaza psychological. For example, when I was in high school in 2006, I had big dreams of academic life at the university. I did my best to get a very high Grade Point Esther Rappaport: My mother’s birth city, Leningrad,

52 Average (GPA) so that I could fulfill my dream of it is difficult to form a clear sense of what daily life is studying at Birzeit University in the West Bank. My GPA like there under the siege. The information that comes was 98.6%. However, like many other students I was through is limited and often inaccurate (for example, we unable to leave Gaza and had to accept this fact. Doing know which aid items are theoretically allowed in but my BA studies in Gaza, I suffered from the shortage of have no way of knowing what actually gets delivered). both electricity and books. The university’s library was Unlike the West Bank, which I visit regularly and can limited to the literary writings of Charles Dickens and learn first-hand about the harsh realities on the ground, Shakespeare and held no contemporary literature or I cannot visit Gaza. Although many journalists report texts on women’s studies, the field in which I am very from Gaza, they tend to focus on political issues while interested. Books are among the many thousands of aid organizations typically only report on the most items whose entrance into Gaza is severely restricted. I urgent humanitarian concerns. I think this lack of finished my BA in English Literature without being able information is part of the siege: Gaza is cut off from to buy a single novel or book. We constantly depended the world in such a way that it is hard to know what is on photocopying and online resources. Due to Israel’s happening there. siege and occupation the educational system in Gaza takes us back to the Middle Ages. Ayah Bashir: It was so clear from our exchanges that Esther reads a lot about Gaza and is very well aware Narrator: Under international humanitarian law (IHL), of the facts, politics and information here. However, a siege is not prohibited per se in armed conflicts. she was often very surprised to hear what I had to say However, combatants must respect other provisions of about the suffering of the people in Gaza. The truth is IHL as well as of international human rights law, such that although information is available, it does not reflect as not starving the enemy civilian population and not the detailed reality that people are living in Gaza. Even imposing collective punishment. The siege of Gaza has for people here it is sometimes incomprehensible and been widely defined as collective punishment, which is unimaginable. prohibited under Article 50 of the Hague Regulations of 1907 and Article 33 of the fourth Geneva Convention). For example, as part of my work with an international The ICRC confirmed in 2010 that the closure non-governmental organization (NGO), I went constitutes collective punishment and violates Israel’s to Khuza’a before the latest attack to interview a international law obligations. beneficiary who was identified as a success story: She had been able to plant a wonderful garden with a variety Ayah Bashir: The position of international law is of of trees as well as vines. After the attack, I went again to course controversial for me personally in the sense see her. Everything was destroyed! I was expecting to see that a siege is not prohibited outright. However, the remnants of the trees, but to my great astonishment international law clearly identifies the Gaza Strip as I couldn’t even find burned trunks: It was as if this land being occupied and subject to an illegal siege where had never had trees on it! I was thinking that if I had not collective punishment and war crimes are continuously seen it by my own eyes I would never have believed or perpetuated by Israel. Hence, it is clearly a problem imagined that there had been life here. for me that so many people, organizations, donors and decision makers tend to treat Gaza as if it is a Narrator: Under a siege, life is reduced to existence humanitarian issue. Gaza’s problem is political: the or survival. Economic development and trade are root causes of the “conflict” rather than the specific kept to a minimum and residents are forced to rely on humanitarian challenges have to be tackled and . Culture stagnates as few have the international law must be applied if the world wants resources or mental space for anything beyond the to see any sustainable positive change in the life of the mundane. The future becomes unimaginable and hope is Palestinians. It is politics that has been impeding the hard to maintain. enforcement of law with regard to Palestine/Israel since 1948. In Leningrad, the siege was part of a world war. The powerful Soviet army was fighting against the German Esther Rappaport: Although I am very concerned army, and the residents believed that at some point the about Gaza and consume all the information I can get, war would end and the siege would fall. Gaza doesn’t

53 have an army but only guerilla groups and the siege profound and cannot be ignored. does not take place during a declared state of war. It is, rather, the chronic state of events and part of the deadly Because both my parents have been recognized as systematic routine of oppression that the occupying Holocaust survivors, I feel entitled enough to the power is forcing on the Palestinian population. Eighty Holocaust heritage to make this claim. percent of Gazans are refugees from other locations in historical Palestine (the part that is now Israel). They are Ayah Bashir: Reading about Leningrad, I entitled by international law to their right of return to wholeheartedly felt that I could relate to the experience their places of origin yet they are unable to realize this of horror. It has been always so perplexing for me to right. The siege has gone on for seven years and there is understand how the same descendants of Jewish people no end in sight. who historically have suffered remarkably as a nation are capable of dehumanizing us. The Nazis tried to starve Yes, It Is Similar to the Holocaust Leningrad as Hitler’s strategic decision was to bypass Leningrad and strangle the city into submission, instead Esther Rappaport: I think being under a siege is similar of attacking it directly. Israel, I feel, is doing both: to being in a Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust. You Killing Palestinian civilians in frequent massacres as well cannot come in or out very easily, living conditions are as slowly and collectively making our life unbearable extremely hard, your life is not worth much and you can by denying our most basic needs, such as the need for be killed or starve at any point. Both the international water supply and electricity. I remember my aunt saying, Jewish community and Germany have in fact recognized during a “humanitarian truce” in the latest aggression on the similarity between a siege and the Holocaust: In Gaza, “Why are they calling it a truce as if we - the ones 2009, the Jewish survivors of the Leningrad siege were still living - were not also dying during this period? We recognized by Germany as Holocaust survivors and are dying, but slowly, without medicine, adequate food, received financial compensation after a lengthy struggle electricity and cooking gas.” led by the Claims Conference, a Jewish organization that fights to obtain compensations from Germany Gaza is now in near-absolute darkness with most for Holocaust survivors. I am not sure why only Jews households receiving only up to four hours of power 1 from among the residents of Leningrad received the per day as Israel’s direct and repeated bombings have recognition and the compensation, even though the badly damaged the only power plant in Gaza and the conditions were identical for Jews and non-Jews in the electricity infrastructure. I clearly remember the nights besieged city; I believe this is due to the fact that no one when the only source of light was coming from artillery fought on behalf of the non-Jewish survivors the way flares illuminating the sky. At that time, it was a great the Claims Conference fought for the Jews. privilege to have your phone charged so that you could check up on a friend or a relative. I recall the long Perhaps being in Gaza during an Israeli military painful moments when we were disconnected not only operation is even worse than being in a ghetto, and from the world, but also from each other. Not only more like being in a concentration camp, since any Gaza could I not go out to hug my closest friend who fled civilian, no matter what age she or he is, what their her house in Al-Shejaiya because of the continuous political affiliations are or where they are situated, can bombings - I could not even call her as I did not have be killed or maimed any second and there is literally the electricity to charge my phone. It was also rare to nowhere to flee for safety. have enough water to wash. Leningrad was also cut off from both water and electricity in the winter of 1941-42. I am aware that many Jews experience it as offensive and hurtful when the Palestinian suffering is compared Esther Rappaport: Hundreds of thousands of to the Holocaust. As a psychologist who regularly treats Leningraders were killed or died of cold or starvation post-trauma victims, I understand these reactions and do as the daily bread ration was 125 grammes (4.4 ounces) not wish to hurt anyone’s feelings. Nonetheless, I think per person in December 1941. In Gaza, most people that the objective similarities between some aspects of are not literally starving but the Israeli government the Holocaust survivors’ experiences and some aspects thinks it has the right to control the residents’ intake of of the besieged Gaza population’s experiences are food, deciding precisely how much food they deserve to 54 receive, of what kind and how frequently. Immediately products that have to be carried out under strict Israeli after imposing the siege on Gaza, a senior Israeli official control. The three military operations in seven years described2 Israel’s planned response. “It’s like a meeting have left Gaza in ruins4 and a large portion of its with a dietician. We have to make them much thinner, population exists in a state of perpetual humanitarian but not enough to die.” Since then, the Israeli Health crisis, depending on aid and with no prospects of Ministry has been calculating the Gazans’ daily caloric economic sustainability. needs – a form of control that I find disgusting. Ayah Bashir: Israel ruled that Gazans needed a daily Ayah Bashir: For example, in Deir al-Balah where I average of 2,279 calories — requiring 170 trucks a day. live in the central Gaza Strip the Al-Awda Factory was That was the theory. The reality is that what has been entirely destroyed in the recent attack. This factory had allowed in is much less than half of these minimum manufactured sweets, biscuits and ice cream since 1977. requirements. It employed over 400 workers in three shifts, 24 hours a day. Now the factory is gone and all the workers are How Economies Function – Or Not – unemployed. Under Siege Narrator: According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Narrator: In Leningrad, non-war-related industry and (OCHA), 178,000 Palestinians are directly affected trade were kept to a minimum at the time of the siege. by the restrictions on access to the land and sea in Some residents went to work and others did not; on Gaza. Restrictions on the land cover 62.6 km2, which some occasions, stores continued to carry merchandise represents 35% of Gaza’s agricultural land and 17% not required for survival even including luxury items, of the entire territory.5 The Internal Displacement but both industry and trade were far below the pre-war Monitoring Centre has estimated6 an annual loss of levels. For food supplies, the military and the civilian 75,000 tonnes of agriculture output (some $50 million). population alike depended on the rations issued by the At the same time, Israel continues to benefit7 from both government. Gaza and the West Bank as major captive markets for its products by preventing possible alternatives to Israeli Although Israel’s official reason for the siege of Gaza merchandise. is security-related in order to prevent or counter the Hamas rocket fire into Israeli territory - Israeli official Ayah Bashir: Before the Summer 2014 attack, a large statements suggest that one of the purposes of the percentage of the population had access to food and siege is to prevent the development of the Palestinian water through a vouchers assistance scheme. After the economy. massacre and the intolerable humanitarian devastation as people lost their homes and possessions, many have had The Israeli government has been quoted as stating,3 to obtain even their clothes through vouchers issued by “A country has the right to decide that it chooses not NGOs. to engage in economic relations or to give economic assistance to the other party to the conflict, or that it The Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza has led wishes to operate using ‘economic warfare’.” to skyrocketing unemployment resulting in despair, depression, drug addiction, and recently fatal attempts at In Gaza, unlike in Leningrad, there is no attempt to migration as people have drowned while attempting to literally physically starve the population. Rather, the flee Gaza by sea. Prolonging and tightening the existing population is being starved metaphorically: reduced to siege on Gaza is not about destroying Hamas, disabling a minimalist existence and kept dependent with no end tunnels, or stopping rocket fire into Israel. It has always in sight, with no hope of sustainability, autonomy or been about Israel’s control over our lives, land, and growth. borders. And it has been about killing more of us. In practice, the Gazan economy has been made Significantly, this strategy is not new. We have endured inoperable by the siege. Exports are not allowed, except a long history of massacres, decades of systemic ethnic for limited and intermittent exports of agricultural cleansing, 47 years of military occupation, and apartheid

55 policies and forced displacement since 1948. All this Escape from the besieged Leningrad was hard and so is continues to this day. However, the latest massacre, fleeing besieged Gaza. To be evacuated from Leningrad, genocide, holocaust - call it what you may - of Gaza in one needed to ride over a frozen lake with the risk of 2014, is the most ferocious one I have ever witnessed sinking if the German army’s bombardment broke with my own eyes. The deliberate targeting and ruthless the ice. (No tunnels could be dug out of Leningrad slaughter of defenseless civilians, the majority of whom because the land is frozen most of the year.) To flee are refugees, the massacre of entire neighborhoods as in Gaza, one needs to be one of the few who are able Al-Shejaiya, Khuza’a, and Rafah, and the obliteration of to prove special circumstances (e.g., those who have houses: All are deeply shocking. received a scholarship to study abroad may be issued a permission to leave via Israel), have the luck to be What is happening in Gaza is multigenerational trauma. allowed into Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which Years of war and aggression have affected everything is opened sporadically and inconsistently, or travel to - human beings, houses, infrastructure, land, trees, Egypt through the tunnels – tunnels that Egypt has animals, livelihoods, hospitals, medical supplies, schools, since destroyed. Terrifyingly, precisely during those mosques, factories, water resources and even Gaza’s only times when Gaza becomes most dangerous – i.e. power plant. All of this was already in bad condition during Israel’s military operations – the exits shut before the summer of 2014 as a direct result of the down completely and leaving becomes near-impossible. seven-year-long siege8 imposed by Israel and enforced At other times, Israel’s policy of issuing permits is by Egypt. somewhat conflicted: on the one hand, there is a desire to encourage emigration, on the other, an equally strong Resistance, Escape and the Political Climate desire to deny Gazans freedom of movement.

Narrator: When Leningrad was under siege, the Ayah Bashir: I think it is so dehumanizing and powerful and well-organized Soviet army fought on humiliating to view us, the Palestinians of Gaza, as behalf of the besieged civilian population. The civilian miserable. It is true that we suffer enormously and population, including children, was also mobilized by survive catastrophic conditions, but we are also people the city and state governments to assist in the resistance who resist for our dignity and justice. We all pray that we efforts, e.g., by producing ammunition and erecting anti- don’t become one of Gaza’s numbers. After surviving tank barriers. the 2008-09 onslaught on Gaza, during which I felt so powerless, I joined the Palestinian movement for With respect to Gaza, claims are often made that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions9 (BDS) on Israel militias use the civilian population as human shields, e.g., that gave me a renewed sense of optimism and sense of by firing rockets out of civilian areas. These claims are power. I also survived the ruthless assault on Gaza in then used as justifications for attacks against civilians. 2012. The Israeli horror of 2014 coincided with the 9th But based on the example of Leningrad, the situation of anniversary of the BDS call10 and the 10th anniversary siege itself makes it difficult to make sharp distinctions of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory between the military and the civilian population: The Opinion11 on the illegality of Israel’s apartheid wall12 in civilian population as a whole, collectively subjected to the occupied West Bank. Not only does Israel’s brutality extreme hardship by the siege, will ardently mobilize intensify the growing BDS movement, it also shatters to support the resistance efforts in any way it can. The the illusion that the Israel of today has any intention of besieged population’s support for those fighting to end achieving a just peace. the siege on their behalf was near absolute in Leningrad, despite the fact that the government was oppressive. It Esther Rappaport: I wish that people in Israel and is substantial in Gaza’s case as well, particularly during in the West were more aware of the non-violent military operations. Because the siege is intolerable, the resistance to the Occupation and the Siege that so many population views ending it as the most urgent goal and Palestinians practice. Unfortunately, the only form of is willing to ignore, for the time being, the rulers’ other resistance coming from Gaza that the world pays any deficiencies. attention to is rocket fire: When that is happening, Gaza is in the news and the world becomes aware of its existence, its plight, and its desire for change. Once,

56 however, a ceasefire is achieved, the world sighs with relief, as if the problem was now solved, and forgets all about Gaza. It is intolerable that nothing else that the Palestinians of Gaza say or do manages to break the walls of complacency and indifference.

Endnotes

1. See: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_ opt_sitrep_19_07_2014.pdf

2. See: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/ u-s-backs-israel-on-aid-for-humanitarian-groups- not-hamas-1.180287

3. See: http://www.mcclatchydc. com/2010/06/09/95621/israeli-document-gaza- blockade.html

4. See: http://al-shabaka.org/policy-brief/politics/ honor-victims-avoid-past-mistakes-reconstructing-g

5. See: http://www.facebook.com/l. php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ochaopt. org%2Fdocuments%2Focha_opt_special_ focus_2010_08_19_english.pdf&h=FAQGuz4S-

6. See: http://www.internal-displacement.org/ middle-east-and-north-africa/palestine/2014/ occupied-palestine-a-policy-of-displacement-and- dispossession-amid-renewed-conflict/

7. See: http://al-shabaka.org/policy-brief/politics/ donor-complicity-israels-violations

8. See: http://electronicintifada.net/tags/gaza-siege

9. See: http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bds

10. See: http://www.bdsmovement.net/call

11. See: http://electronicintifada.net/content/ten-years- after-world-court-ruling-widening-crack-israels- wall/13454

12. See: http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israels-wall- west-bank

57 Which Jerusalem? Israel’s Little-Known Master Plans

by Nur Arafeh May 2016

Overview In this policy brief Al-Shabaka Policy Fellow Nur Arafeh analyzes all three Israeli master plans for It is the year 2050 and Israel has fulfilled its vision for Jerusalem, explaining how they aim to shape the city Jerusalem: Visitors will see a largely Jewish high-tech into a tourism and high-tech center, and the ways center amid a sea of tourists, with a minimal Palestinian in which they use urban planning to reshape the presence. To achieve this vision, Israel is working on city’s demography. She spotlights the dangerous new three master plans; one is well-known but two remain laws Israel has reactivated or passed to advance its under the radar. colonization of the city - the Absentee Property Law and the “third generation law”. She also addresses the had already warned1 in 1995 that “only by role of the PA and the international community as well first projecting an idea of Jerusalem could Israel then as of civil society organizations, and identifies achievable proceed to the changes on the ground [which] would measures that can be implemented by those concerned then correspond to the images and projections.” Israel’s with Jerusalem’s fate.4 “idea” of Jerusalem, as elaborated in its master plans, involves maximizing the number of Jews and reducing Before analyzing the ways in which the three plans the number of Palestinians through a gradual process of reinforce each other, it should be noted that Israel’s colonization, displacement and dispossession2. annexation of East Jerusalem is illegal under international law and is not recognized by the The best known of the three Israeli master plans for international community. In addition, Israel’s declaration the city is the Jerusalem 2020 Master Plan, which has that Jerusalem is its capital, both West and East, has no not been deposited for public view even though it international legal standing, which is why there is no was first published in 2004. The least known are the diplomatic representation in Jerusalem, not even by the Marom Plan, a government-commissioned plan for United States. the development of Jerusalem, and the “Jerusalem 5800” Plan, also known as Jerusalem 2050, which is the A Jewish Destination for Tourism, Higher outcome of a private sector initiative and is presented Education and High-Tech as a “transformational master plan for Jerusalem” (see below). The development of the tourism sector in Jerusalem is at the heart of the three development plans examined in As Israel plans for 2050, the Palestinian Authority this policy brief. For example, under the 2020 Plan, the (PA) “idea” of Jerusalem dates back to 2010 when Jerusalem Municipality5 seeks to promote the tourism the Strategic Multi-Sector Development Plan for East sector and to especially enhance the cultural aspects Jerusalem (SMDP) 2011-2013 was published. And the of Jerusalem. It is planning a marketing campaign PA’s current national development plan for 2014-2016 to increase the potential of real estate development, simply refers back to the 2010 plan. In addition, while support international and urban tourism, and invest the Palestinian leadership speaks of East Jerusalem, in tourism infrastructure to ensure the sector’s which Israel occupied and illegally annexed in 1967, development. as the capital of the State of Palestine and a priority 3 development zone, only 0.44% of the PA’s 2015 budget The Marom Plan also aims to develop Jerusalem as a was to be allocated to the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs tourist city. In 2014 alone,6 the Jerusalem Institute of and to the Jerusalem Governorate. Israeli Studies conducted 14 of its 18 studies for that 58 • The “Jerusalem 2020 Master Plan” was prepared by a national planning committee and first published in August 2004. It is the first comprehensive and detailed spatial plan for both East and West Jerusalem since Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967. Although the plan has not been validated yet as it was not deposited for public review, Israeli authorities are implementing its vision. The plan addresses several development areas including urban planning, archeology, tourism, economy, education, transportation, environment, culture, and art. The plan is available online in Hebrew as well as in at the Civic Coalition for Defending the Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem; this policy brief draws on the “Local Outline Plan”7- Report N.4.

• The Marom Plan is a government-commissioned plan for the development of Jerusalem that will be implemented by the Jerusalem Development Authority.8 The Authority’s goal is to promote Jerusalem “as an international city, a leader in commerce and the quality of life in the public domain.” It is a major planning body for the Jerusalem Municipality, the land Administration, and other organizations in the fields of housing, employment, etc.

The Jerusalem Institute of Israeli Studies9 is conducting the consultation, research, and monitoring for the Marom Plan. The Institute is a multidisciplinary research center that plays a leading role in the planning and development policies for Jerusalem in the fields of urban planning, demography, infrastructure, education, housing, industry, labor market, tourism, culture, etc.

• The “Jerusalem 5800” Master Plan10, also known as “Jerusalem 2050,” is a private initiative founded by Kevin Bermeister, an Australian technology innovator and real estate investor. The plan provides a vision and project proposals for Jerusalem up to the year 2050, serving as a “transformational master plan for Jerusalem” that can be implemented together with other municipal and national government agencies. It is divided into various independent projects, each of which can be implemented on its own. The team for the implementation of the plan is said to include “the best Israeli tourism, transport, year on the tourism sector and submitted them to the To make Jerusalem “the Middle East’s anchor tourist Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Jerusalem and attraction and resource,” the Jerusalem 5800 plan aims Diaspora Affairs, and the Jerusalem Development to increase private investment and construction of Authority. Moreover, as part of the Marom Plan, the hotels; build rooftop gardens and parks; and transform Israeli government earmarked around $42 million11 to the areas surrounding the old city into hotels while boost Jerusalem as an international tourist destination, prohibiting the use of vehicles. The plan also envisions while the Ministry of Tourism was expected to allocate the construction of high-quality transportation routes, some $21.5 million for the construction of hotels in including a “high-speed national rail line; an extensive Jerusalem. The Authority also offers specific incentives12 network of buses and public transportation; the to entrepreneurs and companies to establish or enlarge addition of numerous highways and the expansion hotels in Jerusalem, and to organize cultural events to of existing roads; and an express ‘super highway’ that attract tourists such as the Jerusalem Opera Festival transverses the country from north to south.” The plan as well as events for the tourism industry, such as the also proposes the construction of an airport in the Jerusalem Convention for International Tourism. Horkania Valley between Jerusalem and the to serve 35 million passengers per year. The airport would Promoting the tourism sector also lies at the core of the be connected through access roads and rail to Jerusalem, Jerusalem 5800 Master Plan,13 which envisages Jerusalem Ben Gurion airport and other city centers. as a “Global City, an important tourist, ecological, spiritual, and cultural world hub” that attracts 12 million The Jerusalem 5800 plan attempts to present itself as an tourists (10 million foreign and 2 million domestic) and apolitical plan that promotes “peace through economic more than 4 million residents. prosperity”14 but it has demographic goals15 that prove

59 otherwise. In fact, it envisages that the $120 billion of strategy, severely impeding its ability to fuel the limited total added value from the implementation of the plan, economic development possible under occupation. together with the 75,000 - 85,000 additional full time Moreover, although civil society organizations have jobs in hotels plus 300,000 additional jobs in related stepped in to promote the sector, their efforts have been industries would all reduce poverty - and would attract described as “fragmented and poorly coordinated” in an more Jews to Jerusalem, increasing the number of analysis in This Week in Palestine.18 Jews living in Jerusalem and further tilting the Jewish- Another common goal of the three plans is to attract Palestinian demographic balance in their favor. Jews from all over the world to Jerusalem by developing two advanced industries: Higher education and high However, the tourism sector is not only seen as an tech. engine of economic development to attract Jews into the city. Israel’s development of, and domination over, To promote the higher education industry, the 2020 the tourism sector in Jerusalem, is a tool to control the Master Plan aims to build an international university narrative and ensure the projection of Jerusalem in the in the city center with English as the main language of outside world as a “Jewish city” (see for example the instruction. As for the Marom Plan, it seeks to make official Ministry of Tourism map of the Old City.16) Jerusalem a “leading academic city” that is attractive Israel has strict rules over who can serve as tour guides to both Jewish and international students, who will and the narrative and history that the tourists are told. be encouraged to settle in Jerusalem once they have Palestinian tour guides who do not abide by Israel’s false finished their studies. In the same vein, the Jerusalem branding and who try to give an alternative and critical 5800 plan sees an opportunity to create jobs and achieve analysis of the situation can lose their licenses. economic growth through “extended-stay educational tourism.” These plans to promote the Israeli tourism industry have gone hand in hand with Israeli-imposed restrictions on The development of the higher education industry is the development of the Palestinian tourism industry in intrinsically linked to the development of a high-tech, East Jerusalem. Israeli hurdles include: the isolation of bio-information, and biotechnology industry. The 2020 East Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied Palestinian Master Plan calls for the establishment of a university territory (OPT), especially after the construction of the for management and technology in the city center of Wall;17 shortage of land and the resulting high cost; weak Jerusalem, and for government assistance in Research physical infrastructure; high taxes; restrictions on the and Development (R&D) in the fields of high-tech release of permits to build hotels or convert buildings to and biotechnology. Similarly, the Marom Plan aims at hotels; and difficult licensing procedures for Palestinian promoting Jerusalem as a center of R&D in the field of tourist businesses. These obstacles, even as millions of biotechnology. dollars are being poured into the Israeli tourism market, ensure that the Palestinian tourism industry has no hope It is within this context that the Jerusalem Development of competing with Israel’s. Authority established the BioJerusalem Center19 to foster clusters of bio-med companies in Jerusalem as a The Palestinian tourism sector is further hampered by potential engine of economic development. To attract the lack of a clear Palestinian vision and promotional these companies to Jerusalem, the Authority is offering

Israeli Plans to Promote the Tourism Sector

$42 million: To boost Jerusalem as an international tourist destination (Marom Plan).

$21.5 million: For the construction of hotels in Jerusalem.

12 million tourists: Goal for annual visitors under the Jerusalem 5800 Master Plan

60 very generous benefits including: Tax breaks, grants other things, the plan aims to build affordable housing for hiring new workers in Jerusalem, and special grants units in some existing Jewish neighborhoods as well as to companies involved in R&D or in building physical by building new neighborhoods. The plan also envisages infrastructure. High-tech and healthcare industries connecting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, are also expected to be major beneficiaries of the geographically, economically, and socially, to Jerusalem “Jerusalem 5800” Master Plan. and Tel Aviv.

The 2020 Master Plan recognizes the housing crisis Evicting Palestinians Using Urban Planning suffered by Palestinians, the inadequate infrastructure and the “Law” in Palestinian neighborhoods, and the dearth of public services provided. It aims to enable the densification While Israel works on creating Jerusalem as a business and thickening of rural villages and existing urban 23 hub that attracts Jews and offers them employment neighborhoods; restore the Shu’fat refugee camp, opportunities, the problems faced in East Jerusalem are which lies within Jerusalem’s Israeli-defined municipal legion. They include a squeezed Palestinian business borders; and implement infrastructure projects. and trade sector, a weakened education sector, and a debilitated infrastructure. The result of the suffocation However, while on the surface it appears that the of East Jerusalem’s potential can be seen in the high Plan has an equal interest in Palestinian areas, it is poverty rates, with 75% of all Palestinians in East actually discriminatory. It does not take into account Jerusalem – and as many as 84% of children – living the Palestinian growth rate in East Jerusalem and the 24 below the poverty line20 in 2015. In addition, there is accumulated scarcity of housing. It allocates only a growing identity crisis in East Jerusalem, particularly 2,300 dunums (2.3 sq. km.) for Palestinian construction 25 amongst the youth, due to its isolation from the rest of compared to 9,500 dunums for Israeli Jews. Moreover, the OPT, the leadership and institutional vacuum, and most of the new housing units proposed for Palestinians 26 the loss of hope in the possibility of positive change. are located in the northern or southern areas of East Jerusalem, rather than in the Old City, where the The Wall is one of the most important demographic housing crisis is the most acute and where the settlement measures Israel has put in place to ensure a Jewish activity is also the most intense. majority in Jerusalem and enforce Israel’s de-facto 27 political borders of Jerusalem, thus transforming it In addition, (62.4%) of the increase in Israeli Jewish into the largest city in Israel. The Wall is built in such building will happen through expansion and building a way as to enable Israel to annex an additional 160 of new settlements, thus increasing Jewish territorial km2 of the OPT while physically separating more than control. By contrast, more than half (55.7%) of the 55,00021 Jerusalemites from the city center. Planning and addition of housing for Palestinians will happen through development in neighborhoods that are now beyond the densification, i.e. building within the existing urbanized Wall is extremely poor and governmental and municipal areas, including through vertical expansion. Moreover, services are virtually absent,22 despite the fact that the while Palestinians tend to have higher household Palestinians who live in these areas continue to pay the densities and build at lower densities per dunum than Arnona (property) tax. the average, Israeli Jewish areas have lower household densities but build at larger densities than the average.28 Urban planning is another major geopolitical and strategic tool Israel has used since 1967 to tighten its Furthermore, the plan’s proposals to address the grip over Jerusalem and constrain the urban expansion housing crisis in East Jerusalem will most likely of Palestinians as part of its efforts to Judaize the city. remain ink on paper due to serious barriers to their Urban planning is at the heart of the 2020 Master Plan, implementation. In fact, several preconditions must which views Jerusalem as one urban unit, a metropolitan be met before the Israeli authorities issue building center, and the capital of Israel. One of the main goals permits, including an adequate road system (building of the plan is to “maintain a solid Jewish majority in permits for six-story buildings is conditional on access the city” by encouraging Jewish settlements in East to roads that are at least 12 meters wide); parking spaces; Jerusalem and by reducing negative migration. Among sanitation and sewage networks; and public buildings 61 Evicting Palestinians

2,300 dunums planned for Palestinian construction vs. 9,500 dunums for Israeli Jews. (Nasrallah, 2015)

55.7%30 of additional housing for Palestinians through building within existing urbanized areas; 62.4% of Israeli Jewish building to happen through expansion of urban areas (including settlements).

$30,000: Approximate cost of building permits in Jerusalem. (source: author›s interview) and institutions. Palestinians have no control over municipality to cover the costs of house demolitions, these requirements, which are the responsibility of the generating a large income for the Israeli municipality. municipality; needless to say, this makes it extremely OCHA estimates33 that between 2001 and 2006, the hard for Palestinians to build new houses.29 The plan municipality collected an annual amount of NIS 25.5 also neglects the shortage in classrooms, health facilities, million (around $6.6 million) for ‘illegal construction.’ commercial areas, and other public institutions necessary to meet the demand of the growing Palestinian The 2020 Master Plan is thus a political plan that uses population. urban planning as a tool to ensure Jewish demographic and territorial control in the city. The plan also supports The Palestinian presence in Jerusalem and the “spatial segregation of the various population groups in development of Palestinian neighborhoods is also the city” and considers it a “real advantage.” It aims to severely constrained by the plan’s commitment to divide Jerusalem into various planning districts based on “a strict enforcement of the laws of planning and ethnic affiliation in which no area would combine both building…to impede the phenomenon of illegal Palestinians and Israeli Jews. building.” However, only 7%31 of building permits in Jerusalem were issued to Palestinians in the past few It is worth noting that state institutions are not the only years. Israel’s discrimination in issuing building permits ones involved in the Judaization of Jerusalem. Non- to Palestinians, combined with the high cost of these governmental organizations (NGOs) and religious permits (around $30,000, according to information organizations also take part in remaking urban space. shared with the author), has forced many Palestinians to The right-wing organization Elad, for example, has as its build illegally. main goal settling Jews in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan and running tourist and archeological sites, Palestinians also face discrimination when it comes to especially in the Silwan neighborhood – which they enforcement of regulations. According to a report by call the “City of David” - Elad is seeking to re-create the International Peace and Cooperation Center,32 78.4% Jerusalem34 as a Jewish city with a predominantly Jewish of building violations took place in West Jerusalem history and heritage by erasing the Palestinians’ physical between 2004 and 2008, compared with 21.5% in East presence as well as their history. Elad employed 97 Jerusalem. Yet, only 27% of all violations in West full-time workers in 2014 and, according to Haaretz,35 Jerusalem were subject to judicial demolition orders, received donations of more than $115 million between compared with 84% of violations in East Jerusalem. 2006 and 2013, making it one of the wealthiest NGOs in Israel. Other organizations involved in changing the Furthermore, in addition to the emotional impact and demographic composition of Jerusalem include Ateret instability caused by the demolition of their home, as Cohanim, which seeks to create a Jewish majority in well as the lost investment and belongings, Palestinians the Old City and in Palestinian neighborhoods in East must also pay “illegal construction” fees to the Israeli Jerusalem.

62 Israel has also been using law as a tactic to evict generation of Palestinian tenants after which the Palestinians and appropriate their land, so as to ensure property goes back to its original owner, who are mainly its sovereignty and control over Jerusalem. As recently Jews who owned the property before 1948. According as 15 March 2015, the Israeli Supreme Court activated to Khalil Tufakji,37 more than 300 Palestinians now face the Absentee Property law.36 This law was issued in 1950 the threat of eviction from their home. In Silwan alone, with the aim of confiscating the property of Palestinians 80 court orders threaten hundreds of Palestinians with who were expelled during the 1948 Nakba. It was used eviction. as the “legal basis” to transfer the property of displaced Palestinians to the newly established State of Israel. Saving Jerusalem After 1967, Israel applied the law to East Jerusalem, which allowed it to appropriate the property of Since 2001, Israel has closed at least 31 Palestinian Jerusalemites whose residence was found to be outside institutions, including the , the former Palestine. The law newly activated in 2015 enables Israel headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization to confiscate the property of East Jerusalem Palestinians (PLO), and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. currently living in the West Bank, and to consider their The Governorate of Jerusalem and the Ministry of property in East Jerusalem as “absentee property.” Jerusalem Affairs are also prohibited from working in Jerusalem, and are forced to operate out of a building in Furthermore, while Palestinians cannot claim the Al-Ram, which lies to the northeast of Jerusalem and is properties they lost in 1948 or in 1967 in what is now outside the Israeli-imposed municipal boundaries of the West Jerusalem, Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled in city. favor of Israeli settlers’ claims to win “back” homes that UNRWA had given to Palestinians who had fled Given the leadership and institutional vacuum Israel West Jerusalem and Israel in 1948. In other words, the has created in East Jerusalem, it is especially challenging Supreme Court is being discriminatory since this law to find ways to rebut its colonization of the city and applies to Jews looking to return to property they had dispossession of its Palestinian population. In the before 1948 but does not apply to Palestinians. course of the research for this policy brief, I had the opportunity to speak to representatives of several Another controversial and dangerous law is the organizations, official bodies, and community groups. third Generation law, which targets properties that There was broad agreement that one of the most were rented before 1968 and that are supposed to urgent steps that should be taken is to establish popular be protected by law. According to the new law, the committees in each East Jerusalem neighborhood. protection period ends with the death of the third Such committees could raise East Jerusalem residents’

63 awareness about their rights as residents and about Assembly, the Human Rights Council, and the UN’s Israel’s plans for the future; encourage voluntary work; programs and specialized agencies to expose Israeli monitor and prevent Palestinians from selling their land policies in East Jerusalem, and call on member states to to Israeli Jews; represent the neighborhood at national fulfill their legal obligations. In particular, member states forums; and cooperate with each other to reinforce their should activate Security Council Resolution 47838 of efforts to defend Palestinian land. 1980, which declared “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Indeed, once these committees have been established Power, which have altered or purport to alter the in all neighborhoods, they could form what character, legal status and demographic composition of Jerusalemite organizations believe is also urgently Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied needed: A representative body for Jerusalem at the Palestinian Territory, are all null and void and have no national level, an inclusive body that would include validity whatsoever.” the Jerusalem Governorate, representatives of civil society organizations and the private sector as well The European Union (EU) also has an obligation as independents. This body would work as a channel to ensure full compliance with the principle of non- between Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the PA as recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over East Jerusalem. well as with the rest of the world. Such a representative The EU should translate its rhetoric into effective body could work on three main fronts: measures by halting all direct and indirect economic, financial, banking, investment, academic, and business 1. The PA/PLO. A representative body for Jerusalem activities in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and could lobby the PA/PLO to propel Jerusalem to the throughout the rest of the OPT. forefront of the Palestinian government’s commitments and ensure that it receives the budget and other support The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) could it needs in order to counter Israeli Judaization policies. play a major role in safeguarding Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem, providing direct support as well as in 2. The Arab and international community. In this lobbying the EU and the UN to provide support and sphere, a representative body for Jerusalem should take to take measures to stop and reverse Israel’s violations. the lead in advocacy, lobbying and campaigning at the Such measures could include the establishment by the regional and international level, in coordination with the UN and/or the EU of a register of Israeli violations of Palestinian Diaspora. For example, Jordan should be human rights and the damage incurred by Palestinians lobbied as Custodian of Holy places in Jerusalem to help as a result of Israeli Judaization policies and settlement maintain a secure environment for Palestinians in East expansion in East Jerusalem and in the rest of the OPT. Jerusalem. Other Arab countries, in particular and Saudi Arabia given their special relationships with It is also vital to create a funding body or a development Jerusalem, should also be mobilized. bank to overcome the lack of funding, which is one of the major issues faced by Palestinian institutions in More efforts should be made to reach out to countries East Jerusalem. Such a development bank could have that have already shown solidarity with Palestinians, such several functions, including: providing credit facilities as Sweden, Latin American countries, and the BRICS since most loans are only available at very high interest among others, so that they might use their good offices rates; helping to finance the development of the directly and in collaboration with other countries to housing sector; and providing incentives to encourage hold Israel accountable for its illegal annexation and investment and assist in the revival of the trade sector. colonization of East Jerusalem. The fact that East The Palestinian private sector and Palestinian banks Jerusalem is part of the occupied West Bank is a point within and outside Palestine should also embrace their that is often neglected in the official discourse and that responsibilities and be part of this development bank. should be emphasized. 3. Palestinian communities in their homeland as well These countries should also use their good offices, as in the Diaspora. These communities should help working with the PLO/State of Palestine, at the UN to develop and project a clear vision and operational at all levels, including the Security Council, the General strategy for Jerusalem. Practical measures should

64 be identified to counter Israel’s Judaization policies; palestinians-how-israel-does-it/) as well as this update: enhance the productive capacity of the Palestinian http://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/israels-dangerous- economy in East Jerusalem and strengthen its links new-transfer-tactic-in-jerusalem/ with the economy of the West Bank and Arab world; promote the tourism sector39 to support the limited 3. See: http://www.pmof.ps/ economic development possible under occupation; revive the cultural and economic status of the Old City; 4. The author thanks the Heinrich-Böll-’s enhance the educational and health sector; and foster Palestine/Jordan Office for their partnership and the integration of Palestinians in East Jerusalem into the collaboration with Al-Shabaka in Palestine. The views rest of the OPT. expressed in this policy brief are those of the author and therefore do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Furthermore, the existing legal bodies that offer the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation. The author also thanks legal assistance to Palestinians in East Jerusalem – the Jerusalem Industrial Chamber of Commerce, the e.g. regarding revocation of residency IDs, family Civic Coalition for Human Rights, the Sinokrot Core unification, land appropriation, house demolitions, and Group, the Jerusalem Governorate, and PASSIA for zoning and planning – should coordinate their efforts. their time and the information they shared.

Palestinian civil society, particularly the Boycott, 5. See: https://www.jerusalem.muni.il/Municipality/ Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has a Msg_84/Pages/Jerusalem2020.aspx vital role to play in targeting Israeli plans for tourism and high tech in Jerusalem, through campaigns to 6. See: http://www.jiis.org.il/.upload/Annual%20 boycott Israeli academic and cultural institutions as well Report%202014-final.pdf as businesses that are involved in the Judaization of Jerusalem. 7. See: http://pcc-jer.org/arabic/Publication/jerusalem_ master_plan/engchapt/Intro.pdf The development of a coordinated media strategy is urgently needed to raise Palestinian voices in a challenge 8. See: http://www.jda.gov.il/template/default_e. to Israel’s discursive power and its de-historicized aspx?Cid=21 representation of Jerusalem. Academics and policy 9. See: http://www.jiis.org.il/.upload/Annual%20 analysts also have a vital role to play: There is a dearth Report%202014-final.pdf of research on the socio-economic development of East Jerusalem as well as Israel’s master plans for Jerusalem, 10. See: http://www.jerusalem5800.com/ with very few think tanks working in East Jerusalem. Future research should also move beyond diagnosis of 11. See: http://www.ynetnews.com/ problems to devise creative solutions, using a proactive articles/0,7340,L-4075282,00.html approach rather than a reactive one. The gap between academics and policy makers needs to be bridged to 12. See: http://www.jda.gov.il/template/default_e. ensure that all efforts are united towards the objective aspx?Cid=24 of achieving self-determination, dignity, freedom, and justice. 13. See: http://www.jerusalem5800.com/download-pdf

14. See: http://www.jerusalem5800.com/vision/vision- for-jerusalem

15. See: http://www.jerusalem5800.com/download-pdf Endnotes 16. See: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/. 1. See: http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/25/1/5 premium-1.712551 2. See Al-Shabaka policy brief on the methods used 17. See: http://civiccoalition-jerusalem.org/system/ (http://al-shabaka.org/briefs/decades-displacing- 65 files/documents/chap._7-effects_of_the_separation_ 33. See: https://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_ wall_on_the_economy_of_arab_jerusalem_2008.pdf opt_planning_crisis_east_jerusalem_april_2009_english. pdf 18. See: http://thisweekinpalestine.com/jerusalem- tourism/ 34. See: http://alt-arch.org/en/elad_archaeology/

19. See: http://www.jda.gov.il/template/default_e. 35. See: http://www.haaretz.com/settlementdollars/. aspx?Cid=33 premium-1.707158

20. See: http://www.acri.org.il/en/wp-content/ 36. See: https://docs.google.com/ uploads/2015/05/EJ-Facts-and-Figures-2015.pdf viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.madarcenter. org%2Ffiles%2F529%2F_58%2F765%2F_-_. 21. See: https://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_ opt_jerusalem_report_2011_03_23_web_english.pdf 37. See: http://tajaawob.ps/docs/Al%20Jeel%20Al%20 Thaleth-Eng.pdf 22. See: http://www.ir-amim.org.il/sites/default/files/ akurim_ENG_for%20web_0.pdf 38. See: https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal. nsf/0/DDE590C6FF232007852560DF0065FDDB 23. See: http://www.ir-amim.org.il/en/report/ jerusalem-neighborhood-profile--refugee-camp 39. See: http://thisweekinpalestine.com/jerusalem- tourism/ 24. Ir Amim, 2009. “Too little too late. The Jerusalem Master Plan.”

25. Rami Nasrallah, 2015. “Planning the Divide: Israel’s 2020 Master Plan and Its Impact on East Jerusalem,” In: Turner, M. and Shweiki, O. (ed.), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-Development and Beyond.

26. See: https://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_ opt_jerusalem_report_2011_03_23_web_english.pdf

27. See: http://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/ files/jq-articles/51__The_Jerusalem_Master_plan_1. pdf

28. Ibid, 25.

29. Ibid, 25.

30. See: http://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/ files/jq-articles/51__The_Jerusalem_Master_plan_1. pdf

31. See: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/. premium-1.690403

32. See: http://capi.org.il/wp/wp-content/ uploads/2014/08/Demolishing-Peace.pdf

66 Chapter Four Future Visions and Strategies

Much of the discourse about the future has been grounded in seeking political solutions and is usually limited to whether a two-state solution is still viable or if Palestinians should now go for a single state with equal rights for all. In reality, after decades of exhausting, unbalanced struggle, Palestinians no longer have the sources of power they need to achieve a just political settlement and by 2018, the regional Arab and international situation had shifted against them.

Nor is there a unified vision of what the Palestinian people are striving for. Instead, most political campaigns center on working against violations of Palestinian rights. A unified vision was lost when the PLO moved away from the ideal of a secular democratic state in all of Palestine that it espoused in the 1960s and 1970s, and began to build a slow and painful consensus around the two-state project that was ultimately adopted by the Palestinian National Council in 1988. Nevertheless, Palestinian thinkers and writers have continued to develop ideas about the vision, goals and strategies of the quest for rights. This section includes four pieces that look to a better future and discuss ways to achieve it.

Reclaiming Self-Determination

Ali Abunimah reviews the evolution of the concept of self-determination, its applicability to the Palestinian people, and its gradual erosion since 1991. He argues not only that self-determination must return to the center of the Palestinian struggle, but also shows how the Palestinian exercise of this right can be compatible with eventual coexistence with Israeli Jews.

67 Defeating Dependency, Creating a Resistance Economy

Israel’s relentless settlement drive as well as donor aid have undercut Palestinian steadfastness (sumud). Sam Bahour, Alaa Tartir, and Samer Abdelnour discuss a new economic model built on justice, solidarity, and sustainability and how Palestinians under occupation can move toward an economy that sustains the quest for self- determination.

BDS: A Global Movement for Freedom & Justice

The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, launched in 2005, is best known for the tactics and strategies it advocates. Less well-known is the way in which the BDS call has set out a Palestinian vision and goals: Self-determination as expressed through freedom from occupation, justice for the Palestinian refugees and exiles through the right of return, and equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Omar Barghouti addresses the principles and strategies underpinning the movement, why it has not specified a political outcome, and the “unambiguous invitation” to Israelis of conscience to support it.

To Achieve One State, Palestinians Must Also Work for Two

Nadia Hijab argues that either a one- or two-state outcome can achieve Palestinian aspirations and rights, and that, moreover, fulfilling Palestinian rights requires some of the sources of power associated with the state system. She focuses on the sources of power needed and discusses one in detail, that of the Palestinian narrative, and calls for a reframing of that narrative, including the narrative around BDS.

68 Reclaiming Self-Determination

by Ali Abunimah May 2010

Overview accepted that large Israeli “settlement blocs” housing most of the settlers, will remain where they are in the Will a Palestinian state, no matter how sovereign, fulfill West Bank. the Palestinian right to self-determination? In this policy brief, Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Ali Abunimah reviews The same formula has been adopted for Jerusalem, the evolution of the concept of self-determination, as per the so-called Clinton parameters: Israel would its applicability to the Palestinian people, and its get “Jewish neighborhoods” and the Palestinian state gradual erosion since 1991. He argues not only that would get “Arab neighborhoods.” What this means in self-determination must return to the center of the practice is that Israel would keep everything it illegally Palestinian struggle; he also shows how the Palestinian annexed and colonized since 1967, and Palestinians exercise of this right can be compatible with eventual might get some form of self-rule in whatever is left – coexistence with Israeli Jews. which is shrinking daily as Israel aggressively escalates its Judaization of eastern Jerusalem. While everything How the “peace process” eroded self- east of the 1967 line is divisible and “disputed,” the determination same does not apply to the west. Palestinians would not be entitled, for example, to seek the return of their West Jerusalem neighborhoods ethnically cleansed and In his 1974 speech to the United Nations General colonized by Israel in 1948. The “peace process” has Assembly, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman actually created an incentive for Israel to accelerate its Yasir Arafat addressed “the roots of the Palestine colonization of eastern Jerusalem because Israel knows question,” declaring, “Its causes do not stem from any that whatever is left uncolonized would become the new conflict between two religions or two . maximum ceiling of what the United States and other Neither is it a border conflict between neighboring peace process sponsors would support as Palestinian States. It is the cause of a people deprived of its demands. homeland, dispersed and uprooted, and living mostly in exile and in refugee camps.” Similarly, the refugee question has been virtually “settled” as well. Palestinian Authority-appointed chief How ironic then that the “peace process” has negotiator revealed in a paper he circulated reconceived the Palestine question precisely as little last December that Fatah leader and acting Palestinian more than a border dispute between Israel and a Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had proposed to putative Palestinian state. The “roots” were first Israel that no more than 15,000 Palestinian refugees per reduced to a laconic list of “final status issues”: year for ten years return to their original lands in what borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees and then is now Israel.1 According to Erekat, then Israeli Prime gradually buried. Lost has been any commitment to self- Minister had countered with an offer of determination in principle or in practice. 1,000 refugees per year for a period of five years. In other words, the parties had already agreed to abrogate Although they have rarely been formally discussed, it has the fundamental rights of millions of Palestinian long been conventional wisdom in peace process circles refugees, and were haggling only over the difference that the “final status” issues have already effectively between 5,000 and 150,000, or less than three percent been settled, largely according to Israel’s requirements of the Palestinian refugees registered to receive services (we have heard ad nauseam the refrain “everyone knows from UNRWA (the United Nations Works and Relief what a final settlement will look like”). The United Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). States and its hand-picked Palestinian leaders have

69 So what is left to negotiate? Camille Mansour’s policy – had to enjoy the freely given consent of those who brief2 accurately summarizes the outstanding issues would have to live under them. The principle was no – as seen from within the peace process – the final sooner enunciated than effectively violated in many borders and attributes of sovereignty of the Palestinian cases after World War I, particularly in Palestine. state. Mansour doubts that negotiations in present However, it gained ground and was later enshrined circumstances would lead to a peace treaty in which in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter and other “Palestinian sovereignty requirements could be attained.” instruments, assuming particular importance in post- World War II decolonization. Let us assume for the sake of argument that Israel were to agree to a Palestinian state in the West Bank including Tomis Kapitan, a professor of Philosophy at Northern East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip that satisfies official Illinois University, who has also previously taught at Palestinian positions and provides for a state no more Birzeit University, provides an excellent summary of the or less sovereign than any other. The question that then history of the principle and its application. He argues arises is: Does this sovereign state provide for the self- persuasively that as conceived and practiced, the right determination of the Palestinian people? Does it restore belongs not to national groups qua national groups, but and guarantee their fundamental rights? As argued, to the legitimate residents of any region whose status below, the answer is a clear no. And this underscores the is unsettled (e.g. because it was previously colonized or need to distinguish the limited goal of sovereignty from under no sovereignty) or which is endangered because that of self-determination. the current sovereign has persistently failed to protect, or has itself consistently violated the fundamental rights Sovereignty is exercised by a state through the fulfillment of the legitimate residents. The residents of regions of commonly agreed functions: effective control of meeting these criteria “have a right to determine their territory, borders and resources, and maintenance of political future either by constituting themselves as an political independence among others. Self-determination autonomous political unit, or by merging with another is exercised by a people legitimately inhabiting a given state, or by dissolving into smaller states.”4 territory. Self-determination may result in a sovereign state, but it may not. It is fundamental to understand Palestine, as Kapitan observes, “is the only territory this difference and to recognize that self-determination placed under a League of Nations Mandate in which the remains at the heart of the Palestinian struggle. established inhabitants were not granted this privilege.”5 Instead, Great Britain, the mandatory power, agreed Understanding the principle of self- to partition the country over the unified opposition of determination the overwhelming indigenous Arab majority, and aided and abetted the build up of settler-colonial Zionist forces arriving from other parts of the world and which The principle of self-determination as it is understood eventually carried out a violent takeover of much of today was enunciated by US President Woodrow Wilson the country. By endorsing partition with Resolution 181 toward the end of World War I. In Wilson’s words, “the of 1947, Arafat noted in his 1974 speech, “the [UN] settlement of every question, whether of territory, of General Assembly partitioned what it had no right to sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political divide – an indivisible homeland” and thus contributed relationship” is to be made “upon the basis of the free to the denial of the right of self-determination. No acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately form of consultation through referendum or plebiscite concerned and not on the basis of the material interest or other democratic process was ever contemplated. or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for sake of its own exterior Today, Kapitan argues, the legitimate residents of influence or mastery.”3 historic Palestine include at least all Palestinians living in any part of the country, and all refugees outside the Put simply, territories and people could no longer be country. “Because expulsion does not remove one’s shifted around between empires and sovereigns like right of residency, then these Palestinians also retain pieces on a chessboard. Any political arrangements residency rights in those territories from which they ­– particularly in territories undergoing decolonization were expelled.”6 Thus, the Palestinian people collectively

70 retain “an entitlement to being self-determining in that is equivalent, even morally symmetric, to the that region [historic Palestine]… not qua Palestinians, Palestinian right to self determination” as this would but qua legitimate residents. That force was used blur “the essential differences between the inalienable against them has not erased the fact that they are, and rights of the indigenous population and the acquired are recognized as being, a legitimate unit entitled to rights of the colonial-settler population.” participate in their own self determination.”7 Yet under Kapitan’s formulation, Israeli Jews would The peace process that began with the 1991 Madrid be entitled to participate in self-determination not as Conference has gradually excluded the majority of a distinct national group, but to the extent that they Palestinians from having any role in determining the are or become legitimate residents of the region. future of their country. In the eyes of peace process Barghouti spells out conditions under which colonial sponsors, the “Palestinian people” constitutes at most settlers can be accepted by the indigenous population as residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, though equal citizens living in a society “free from all colonial even Gaza now finds itself as marginalized as the subjugation and discrimination.” It would require the Diaspora. It is this exclusion that has allowed a cause of settler-colonial community, in this case Israeli Jews, to decolonization and self-determination to be reduced to relinquish their colonial character and settler privileges, little more than a “border dispute.” and accept “unmitigated equality,” including the right of return and reparations for Palestinian refugees. Palestinian self-determination and the rights of Israeli Jews Inspired by the South African Freedom Charter and the 1998 Belfast Agreement, a group of intellectuals including Palestinians and Israelis set out similar How and on what terms could a Palestinian exercise principles in the 2007 One State Declaration: of the right to self-determination throughout historic Palestine be compatible with eventual coexistence The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in between Palestinians and Israeli Jews? The concept that it and to those who were expelled or exiled from it since a settler-colonial community is entitled, under specific 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or conditions, to participate in self-determination, not as current citizenship status; a distinct national group, but as legitimate residents, accords fully with international law and with precedents Any system of government must be founded on the in other decolonizing countries including , principle of equality in civil, political, social and cultural Namibia, and Mozambique. rights for all citizens. Power must be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all people in the Omar Barghouti, a leader in the Palestinian campaign diversity of their identities.9 for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on Israel, has argued strongly against recognizing Israeli Jews as Finally, the notion that Israeli Jews are legitimate forming a national community in Palestine. Barghouti residents, provided they shed their colonial character warns that “[r]ecognizing national rights of Jewish and privileges, derives directly from the traditional settlers in Palestine cannot but imply accepting their conception of Palestinian self-determination. As Arafat right to self-determination.”8 This would, he argues, put it in his 1974 UN speech, “when we speak of our contradict “the very letter, spirit and purpose of the common hopes for the Palestine of tomorrow we universal principle of self-determination primarily as a include in our perspective all Jews now living in Palestine means for ‘peoples under colonial or alien domination who choose to live with us there in peace and without or foreign occupation,’ to realize their rights.” Such discrimination.” recognition, he warns, “may, at one extreme, lead to claims for secession or Jewish ‘national’ sovereignty on part of the land of Palestine.” Focusing on self-determination

There can, Barghouti argues, be no “inherent or Placing self-determination back at the center of acquired Jewish right to self determination in Palestine the Palestine question compels us to formulate a strategy that addresses the rights of all segments of 71 the Palestinian community inside and outside historic citizenship for Irish nationalist Catholics and to replace Palestine, and which ensures their right to participate them with strong mechanisms to redress the historic in the struggle for, and enjoy the fruits of, self- imbalance in terms of political and cultural power, determination. access to jobs, housing and other resources.

It requires setting out an agenda that addresses the three At the same time, Northern Ireland has no inherent historic and current sources of injustice, the “roots” “right to exist” as a separate jurisdiction. If a simple of the conflict. Such an agenda, as stated in the widely- majority of the people who live in it vote for a united endorsed 2005 Palestinian call for BDS, demands that Ireland, the Belfast Agreement binds the United Israel recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right Kingdom and Irish governments to give effect to this to self-determination and uphold international law by: wish. Protestant unionists – descended from settlers who arrived from England and Scotland in the 17th (1) Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab Century – thus established no right to self-determination lands and dismantling the [West Bank separation] Wall; as a separate national group even after more than three hundred years. (2) Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab- Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and, After 62 years, Israel is no closer to establishing its legitimacy. Neither passage of time, nor declarations (3) Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights cajoled, bullied or bought out of successive leaders of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and of the Palestinian national movement, have settled properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.10 the questions of Israel’s creation, or its demand to be recognized as a “Jewish state” with the right to It is clear that the limited goal of sovereignty that a West discriminate against Palestinians. Palestinian claims for Bank-Gaza state would achieve addresses at best only self-determination have not been extinguished, nor have the first point and cannot possibly meet the minimum Palestinians generally pursued them with any less vigor. requirements of Palestinian self-determination. Therefore, the formula “everyone knows” is the answer Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s – a state on a fraction of Palestine for a fraction of the demand that Palestinians must accept Israel’s “right Palestinian people – would only perpetuate the denial of to exist as a Jewish state,” is nothing if not an implicit self-determination for the vast majority of Palestinians recognition that without the active consent of the no matter how “sovereign” that state. Palestinian people, the Zionist project can never enjoy legitimacy or stability. Palestinians have steadfastly It is of course possible in principle for all three demands resisted granting such recognition because to do so to be met within the context of a two-state solution, would negate their rights and indeed threaten their very but this would still require Israel to forgo its Zionist existence. character and become a state of all its citizens in which Jews enjoy all the same individual rights and rights to Conclusion community life and cultural expression as everyone else but no more. There has never been a more opportune moment for Palestinians to put forward their demands for equality The 1998 Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland is an and justice in clear, principled and visionary terms example of such a “two-state solution.” It maintained fully rooted in international law, numerous precedents two separate jurisdictions on the island of Ireland: and accepted principles. The tenacious resistance Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but on the ground – in all its legitimate forms – and the each is bound constitutionally, by treaty and under growing global BDS solidarity movement need to be European law to be a state of all its citizens. Northern complemented by a program worthy of such efforts and Ireland ceased to be, as it long was, “a Protestant sacrifices. Our energy should be invested in developing state for a Protestant people.” Indeed, the core of the support for such a program rather than worrying about peace process has been to dismantle state institutions, the minutiae of moribund negotiations, which cannot symbols, laws and practices that enshrined second-class result in the restoration of Palestinian rights.

72 Once the equality principle at the heart of the 10. “Palestinian Call for Boycott, Divestment, and Palestinian struggle is recognized, it becomes easier Sanctions (BDS),” PACBI, 9 July 2005 (http://www. and more logical to conceive of a solution involving pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=66) a single, democratic state encompassing Israeli Jews and Palestinians as equal citizens, albeit with necessary mechanisms to protect collective cultural rights and other interests, and explicit, vigorous and appropriate mechanisms for decolonization, restitution and correcting entrenched social and economic injustices.

Whether in one or more states, the focus of Palestinian efforts should be on the fulfillment of the rights of all Palestinians and achieving equality rather than perpetual negotiations, which serve to undermine both.

Endnotes

1. Ali Abunimah, “PLO paper reveals leadership bereft of strategy, legitimacy,” , 11 March 2010 (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/ article11126.shtml)

2. See: http://al-shabaka.org/policy-brief/politics/how- sovereign-state

3. As quoted in Tomis Kapitan, “Self-Determination,” in Tomis Kapitan and Raja Halwani, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Philosophical Essays on Self-Determination, Terrorism and the One-State Solution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 13-71.

4. Ibid., 27

5. Ibid., 58

6. Ibid., 59

7. Ibid., 58

8. Omar Barghouti, “Re-imagining Palestine: self- determination, ethical decolonization and equality,” Znet, 29 July 2009 (http://www.zcommunications.org/ re-imagining-palestine-by-omar-barghouti)

9.“The One State Declaration,” The Electronic Intifada, 29 November 2007 (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/ article9134.shtml)

73 Defeating Dependency, Creating a Resistance Economy

by Alaa Tartir, Sam Bahour, and Samer Abdelnour February 2012

In an important recent piece - Economic Hallucination1 delusions of a Palestinian economic miracle, “The - Ramallah-based Al-Shabaka policy advisor Sam crippling truth is one of poverty, personal insecurity Bahour exposed the charade played by both Western and protracted economic decline… [only serving] to donors and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to cover up distract the world from implementing difficult solutions the occupied territory’s inexorable economic meltdown to the real problems.” How difficult are those problems? after decades of Israeli military occupation. Arguing Rashid Khalidi went to the heart of the issue when that the combined donor-PA approach poses major he asked how4 “the settlement-industrial complex” obstacles to freedom and rights, Bahour concluded: “It’s would be uprooted – a complex that stretches beyond time for a new economic model, one built on economic the 600,000 settlers living in the occupied West Bank justice, social welfare, solidarity, and sustainability.” What and East Jerusalem to encompass the “hundreds of would such an economic model look like and how can thousands in government and in the private sector Palestinians living under occupation move from today’s whose livelihoods and bureaucratic interests are linked grim reality to an economy that sustains the quest for to the maintenance of control over the Palestinians”. self-determination? Al-Shabaka policy advisors Alaa Tartir and Samer Abdelnour join Bahour to debate these It should be noted that even those reports that speak questions and explore alternatives. glowingly of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s institution- building efforts cannot completely escape the truth. Needed: Tools to Communicate the Multiple reports by the World Bank, International Socioeconomic Reality Monetary Fund, and the European Union, admit that the private sector cannot operate due to the restrictions of the occupation and the shrinking of the Palestinian The Gaza Strip has often been described as a large productive base. One 2010 World Bank report5 went prison and, indeed, Israel’s siege makes it impossible to so far as to say that Israel’s “apparatus of control” had portray it as anything else. The West Bank, including “become more sophisticated and effective in its ability East Jerusalem, is also a prison: its entire Palestinian to interfere in and affect every aspect of Palestinian population, from the PA president (whose VIP status life, including job opportunities, work, and earnings… was recently downgraded by Israel to a two-month travel [turning] the West Bank into a fragmented set of social permission) to day laborers, are forced to rely on Israel and economic islands or enclaves cut off from one for freedom of movement and access. Israel directly or another.” indirectly controls all Palestinian economic resources. Furthermore, 60% of the West Bank, classified as Area Although neo-liberal economic policies accelerated C under the Oslo Accords, is completely off limits to under Fayyad brought wealth and spending power to Palestinian development. Yet these West Bank realities small segments of the West Bank, this was doomed are masked by talk of economic “growth” of as much to be a temporary phenomenon. That has now been as 9% a year, impressive institution building, and a replaced with spiraling costs and deficits that the booming stock market. This harmful narrative is both Government is seeking to address through the same a result of “people-blind” macro-economic measures kind of austerity measures – public sector downsizing, and political propaganda that effectively normalizes the higher taxes, and reduced incentives for investments occupation-PA-donor status quo.2 – the same kinds of policies imposed upon many developing countries. As Jeremy Wildeman put it in an article3 on the

74 Economist Raja Khalidi questioned the applicability University, UNCTAD12 and the Rosa Luxemburg of structural adjustment policies to the Palestinian Foundation13 do important work and can help to further context in a recent article,6 noting that longstanding develop accurate tools for quantifying, and analyzing financial problems in the OPT have nothing to do with such costs. It is also important to openly disseminate structural problems that can be “adjusted.” Rather, they and discuss these costs widely and build consensus are the direct result of the occupation. In addition to around their findings and potential actions. the volatility of the tax base and the vulnerability of the level of economic activity to the Israeli closure policy Top Priority: Dealing with Aid Dependency and recurrent military confrontations, Israel has full control over the tax and customs clearance revenue that The debates about Palestinian dependence on 7 it collects on behalf of the PA. As a report by the UN international aid go back to at least the Nakba (the Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD Palestinian catastrophe of dispossession in 1948). revealed, imports produced in a third country and re- Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins’ analysis14 of past aid exported to the territories as if they were produced in initiatives suggests that these bore the “tangible signs of Israel (indirect imports) cause losses of $480 million expulsion” and spoke of a common exile. The present USD per year - almost 25% of public revenues, 10% in is more pernicious because the sources of aid are easily lost gross domestic product (GDP) and 30,000 jobs per erased together with their implications: “The visible year. The PA’s moves are leading to widespread protests is no longer a reliable source of what is there. Direct against what has been termed “Fayyadism” and the neo- imports are not direct. Palestinian police uniforms liberal policies it represents. mean Israeli coordination. And a new ‘Palestinian’ road probably means more settlers.” Among the challenges for Palestinian economists and analysts are: Which tools and measures might be used Much has been written about the problems of the or developed to more effectively communicate the aid industry in the occupied territories. There is a reality of the Israeli occupation, from the mundane to need to move beyond arguments that aid sustains the the catastrophic in both human and economic terms. occupation and to devise political costs that create a real For example, is it viable to deduct from rather than change. Palestinians must encourage the aid industry add to GDP the costs of construction or consumption to stop wasting resources under the false pretenses related to checkpoints and other forms of mobility of assistance and to help create a genuine economic restrictions (i.e. jobs to construct roads, extra fuel steadfastness to end the occupation. Donors are aware and transportation services) as well as other costs of of the issues but have little incentive to align general the occupation? Similarly, when a student from Gaza development policies with the reality of the Palestinian cannot study in Birzeit or a person is imprisoned for experience. This is partly due to the unwillingness of months or years without charge, what is the negative donor agencies to defy donor country political agendas, cost to the Palestinian economy? Such realities do and partly to the global reality that aid policy is highly impact Palestinian socioeconomic well-being yet are decoupled from genuine socioeconomic improvement. much more difficult to measure than the cost of Added to this is the PA’s acquiescence to the status quo. expropriated land and resources - which also require However, it cannot be ignored that donor countries measurement in terms of lost socioeconomic, human, benefit greatly from the current configuration of the and political value. ARIJ, the Applied Research Institute- aid industry. This is particularly true of USAID and 8 Jerusalem, estimated that the total measurable cost of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Israeli occupation on the Palestinian economy in whose contractors and consultants consume so much 2010 was $6.897 billion, a staggering 84.9% of the total of their own aid. In addition, the recent book15 by Palestinian GDP in 2010. Sahar Taghdisi-Rad reports that a great deal of aid to Palestinians contributes to the Israeli economy. In end, There is a need for new measures to factor in not little aid reaches Palestinians; that which does signifies only the cost of the occupation but also the costs of an immense political cost when it ignores inalienable corruption. National and international institutions rights to freedom, self-determination, and return. like the Bisan Centre9 for Research and Development, ARIJ,10 the Center for Development Studies11 at Birzeit

75 Donors have never taken Palestinian claims seriously, their landlords. Some of the biggest and most important partly because donor investment in the so-called Palestinian NGOs refuse to give any information, “peace process” has never been seriously challenged. claiming that the data is too sensitive. The Palestinian A civil society campaign is urgently needed to expose case is not dissimilar, though perhaps not as extreme, to these operations and make it difficult for donors to do Haiti’s “Republic of NGOs”.18 Forced to pay for their business as usual. Getting a few “bad” donors out of own freedom from colonization, Haitians were once a Palestine as a result of social pressure would go beyond people able to feed and clothe themselves. simply “reforming” aid and might restore Palestinian steadfastness and resistance in the struggle for human The Palestinian leadership is partly responsible for rights. the present conditions of economic dependency and continues to suffer from the thinking and consequences Another good starting point along this road would of an “economic peace” engendered by the Paris be lobbying to revoke the exemptions the late Protocol signed with the Israelis in 1994. Such “peace” Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gave to USAID. has promoted economic normalization through joint According to a 2010 report16 by AMAN, a Palestinian industrial zones, Israeli-Palestinian business forums, coalition for transparency and accountability, 146 Palestinian investments in Israel and even in settlements, foreign organizations are registered, just 40% of the neglect of the agricultural and industrial base, joint total number operating in the OPT. This is partly management of water resources for the benefit of because Arafat exempted from registration all USAID Israeli settlements and industry, neglect of Palestinian institutions, branches, bodies and companies, according economic activities in Jerusalem, privatization, and to the report. Furthermore, the Ministry of National encouragement of public and individual debt. All of the Economy grants many USAID branches registration above has occurred alongside increasing entrenchment permits as non-profit companies without requiring the of Israeli’s colonization of Palestine. submission of any official documents. They do not have to report or submit budgets, and are not subject to It is vital to address the link between politics, capital the oversight of the Palestinian Companies Controller. and aid. Palestinians must aim to move away from the USAID is not the only to operate without registration current context toward a paradigm that understands or oversight. Others include Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, development as means to realizing rights, freedoms, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Ford Foundation, Handicap and self-determination.19 It is also essential to move International, and Diakonia. Indeed, the author of beyond the technocratic and apolitical understanding another study on international aid agencies told Al- of the development process toward recognizing the Shabaka that one NGO refused to disclose information asymmetry of power and colonial dominance. Many on the basis that “we are registered by the Israeli Palestinian writers are touching on different aspects government and so you don’t have the right to ask us of this dilemma. This body of work needs to be to reveal any of our information, particularly when it taken a stage further so that it can compete with the comes to finances”. existing paradigm and discourse and provide a credible alternative. The status quo only serves to normalize and The PA should not only demand accountability from maintain the Israeli occupation by ignoring the political foreign NGOs but also tax their operations. A tax on roots of Palestinian poverty. the consultancies of foreign experts will make them more expensive for donors in relation to local expertise. Learning from Practical Experience at This is fully in harmony with the Paris Declaration for Home and Abroad aid effectiveness, as it would promote the utilization of national capacity. Such incentives might help redirect aid A new Palestinian agenda for a resistance economy can to Palestinian employment. be informed by indigenous, regional, and international experiences. The economic vision must be to reinforce This problem extends to Palestinian NGOs, which now self-sustainability and socioeconomic (as well as cultural) 17 number some 1,500 active organizations. Many refuse resistance over and above artificial economic growth. to publicly disclose their general assemblies, boards, Economic growth – as measured, discussed, and staff, funders, audited financial reports, bylaws, and even

76 applied has become a leash and muzzle. This is not to Organization. The challenge now would be to build the suggest that private sector development be hindered; trust of the Palestinians in the Diaspora, to ensure that entrepreneurship is important at all levels and scales. But Palestinian funds for a Palestinian development agenda there must be a vision for an economy that sits at the would not be misused or fill the pockets of corrupted heart of the Palestinian struggle. leaders, but would instead be actually managed as bonds by a national development bank or through a national The first priority must be self-reliance in terms of development agency along the lines of the Agha Khan basic foods. Small-scale agriculture can – and has – Foundation. been carried out by Palestinians to feed themselves, e.g. permaculture, rooftop drip gardens, and local There is also a need to think about how Palestinians biodiversity in terms of crops. Taken to scale, this would can institutionalize and eventually create a bureaucracy gradually reduce and eventually end dependence on around a democratic people-driven development food aid. It could also serve to reconnect millions of agenda. In the development literature there is a trend encamped Palestinians to land-based livelihoods. Much that prioritizes the indigenous mechanisms, approaches, can be learned from Lebanese author Rami Zurayk’s and governance for development. In fact, the leading work on how Arab agriculture has been undermined by institutions of the first Intifada demonstrated aid and ways to restore indigenous practices20. Cuba’s effective Palestinian-centered governance provisions. experience21 of achieving food security under politically Unfortunately, these were displaced in the wake of the adverse conditions is also worth studying. Another Oslo Accords. experience worthy of study is that of the Sahrawis, who managed to organize and administer in exile a highly Importantly, a new Palestinian economic vision must educated population aligned with their national interests embrace dignity in aid. There must be a time limit by under the most adverse circumstances.22 which aid from donor nations supporting any aspect of Israeli military activity is respectfully declined. All It is also vital to prevent the PA from undermining international NGOs should agree to work on Palestinian Palestinian agricultural potential. Marj Ibn Amer valley development priorities and timeframes (not three-year in district has historically been a major food basket donor agendas) and tackle the root causes of Palestinian for Palestinians, but the PA has commenced actions to poverty: the Israeli occupation and resulting restrictions establish an industrial zone, whose ability to operate and continuing colonization of Palestine. Transparency will be fully dependent on Israel, on that land. These in purpose and operations, as well as demonstrated attempts are being documented,23 legally challenged and results must be ensured. If we Palestinians do not exposed by BISAN among others. PA officials have ensure dignity in our development, no one will. been known to laugh when someone talks about the agriculture sector. In fact, the real joke are the official declarations about empowering the people in their land when the land is neither preserved nor used for Palestinian interests.

Traditional cultural industries are another area worthy of support. Exporting Palestinians’ rich cultural heritage Endnotes (unlike vulnerable cash-crops such as carnations and strawberries) can help educate people globally about the 1. See: http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details. Palestinian cause and provide opportunities to preserve php?id=3596&ed=202&edid=202 cultural industries. 2. See: http://al-shabaka.org/unmasking-aid-after- A Palestinian development agenda should engage palestine-papers Diaspora Palestinians in the struggle for sustainable self-reliance. Palestinians have the experience of the 3. See: http://www.thinkir.co.uk/delusions-of-a- 5% that used to be deducted from the salaries of palestinian-economic-miracle/ those working in the Gulf for the Palestine Liberation

77 4. See: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/ farming-and-freedom%3a-sowing-the-arab-spring) and full-transcript-of-interview-with-palestinian-professor- his blog (http://landandpeople.blogspot.com/). rashid-khalidi-1.399632 21. See: http://www.newformulation.org/2agriculture. 5. See: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ htm INTWESTBANKGAZA/Resources/GenderStudy- EnglishFeb2010.pdf 22. See Randa Farah’s recent study: https://pi.library. yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/refuge/article/view/34720 6. See: http://www.alquds.com/news/article/view/ id/325316?fb_ref=cn3p5&fb_source=home_oneline 23. See: http://ar.bisan.org/industrialzones

7. See: http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/tdb58d4_ en.pdf

8. See: http://www.arij.org/programs/116-new/488- economic-cost-of-occupation.html

9. See: http://www.bisan.org/our_profile_pages. php?pid=0

10. See: http://www.arij.org/

11. See: http://home.birzeit.edu/cds/

12. See: http://unctad.org/en

13. See: http://www.rosalux.de/english/foundation. html

14. See: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4170/ in-colonial-shoes_notes-on-the-material-afterlife

15. See: http://electronicintifada.net/content/new- book-shows-how-aid-pa-ended-israels-pockets/9951

16. See: http://www.aman-palestine.org/Documents/ Publication/INgosEn.pdf

17. See: http://www.mas.ps/Newsite/webfm_send/68

18. See: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/ insidestoryamericas/2012/01/201211311112785532. html

19. See, for example, this recent article by economist Ali Kadri: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index. php?context=va&aid=23470

20. See his recent book Food, Farming, and Freedom (http://www.justworldbooks.com/books/150-food-

78 BDS: A Global Movement for Freedom and Justice

by Omar Barghouti May 2010

Overview The global campaign in response to the Palestinian BDS Call, which is guided by its Palestinian leadership, has While media attention over the past few months has made significant inroads into the Western mainstream focused on a brewing third Palestinian intifada in over the past few years. The global BDS Campaign response to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the asserts a new, rights-based discourse in dealing with the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Al-Shabaka question of Palestine. By so doing, it decisively exposes policy advisor Omar Barghouti argues that a far more the double standard and exceptionalism with which the widespread, nonviolent grassroots movement originating United States and most of the West have to varying in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been building degrees treated Israel ever since its establishment and spreading around the world. He reviews the through the carefully planned and methodically executed formation and evolution of the boycott, divestment, and campaign of forcible displacement and dispossession sanctions (BDS) movement, including its rights-based of the majority of the Palestinian people in the 1948 (as opposed to solutions-based) approach, its collective Nakba.4 The official western collusion reached its leadership, its call to Israelis of conscience, and its height when Western states collectively ignored the promotion of context-specific strategies. historic advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice on 9 July 2004, which affirmed that The Trigger for BDS Israel’s colonial Wall and settlements were contrary to international law – at a time when Palestinians were still reeling from Israel’s violent take over of cities and Not only friends of Palestinian rights recognize the refugee camps in the occupied West Bank in 2002. This potential of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and factor was the direct trigger for the BDS Call a year Sanctions (BDS) campaign; foes do too. In May 2009, at later. AIPAC’s policy conference, Executive Director Howard Kohr warned that BDS was reaching the American mainstream and “laying the predicate for abandonment Rights-Based Approach [of Israel].”1 The BDS Call identifies the fundamental rights Kohr added, “This is a conscious campaign to shift that correspond to the three main segments of the policy, to transform the way Israel is treated by its indigenous people of Palestine. Based on international friends to a state that deserves not our support, but our law and universal principles of human rights, the Call contempt; not our protection, but pressure to change its urges various forms of boycott against Israel until it essential nature.” fully complies with its obligations under international law by: BDS does indeed challenge Israel’s “essential nature.” Rooted in almost a century of civil resistance to • Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab Zionist settler colonialism, the Palestinian Civil Society lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Campaign for BDS against Israel was launched on 9 July Wall; 2005,2 ushering in a qualitatively new phase of resistance to Israel occupation, dispossession and apartheid against • Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab- the indigenous people of Palestine.3 Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

79 • Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of the moral clarity of the Palestinian struggle for self Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and determination, justice, freedom and equality neutralizes properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194. -- even outweighs -- Israel’s military power and financial prowess. BDS is the classic right over might paradigm, The BDS Call, signed by over 170 Palestinian with the international public increasingly recognizing organizations, political parties, trade union federations, that Israel’s criminality and impunity place a moral and mass movements, expresses the collective burden on all people of conscience to act fast, and with aspirations of the Palestinian people by asserting that effectiveness, political suaveness and nuance. only the fulfillment of the Call’s three basic demands would satisfy the minimal requirements for the people Collective Palestinian Leadership and of Palestine to exercise the inalienable right to self Reference determination. In 2008, the formation of the Palestinian BDS National The BDS Call has laid “the predicate” for transcending Committee, the BNC, created a unified Palestinian the failed official Palestinian policy of reducing reference and guiding force for the global BDS movement. Palestinian rights to the attainment of a Bantustan under The BNC is a broad coalition of leading Palestinian Israel’s overall control. political parties, unions, coalitions and networks representing the three integral parts of the people It presents a popular Palestinian response to the of Palestine: Palestinian refugees; Palestinians in the incessant concessions by the so-called leadership over occupied West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Gaza basic rights. Palestinian officials, lacking a democratic Strip; and Palestinian citizens of Israel.5 mandate and running after the trappings of power, narrow economic interests, and privilege, have through An important component of the BDS Call that is years of a US-Israeli designed and managed “peace often overlooked is the unambiguous invitation to process” effectively surrendered the right of return as it conscientious Israelis to support the Call, recognizing is defined by the UN; accepted Israel’s occupation and the important role anti-colonialist, anti-racist – i.e., anti- colonization of key parts of the West Bank, including in Zionist -- Israelis can and ought to play in ending Israel’s East Jerusalem; expunged the 1948 Palestinians, citizens criminal impunity and apartheid. of Israel, from the very definition of the Palestinian people, indirectly legitimizing Israeli apartheid; forsaken A fast growing group of principled Jewish-Israeli the moral high ground by accepting a symmetry between supporters of BDS fully recognizes this Palestinian the “claims of both sides;” and played along Israel’s reference.6 Some Zionist “left” voices, on the other public relations campaign of portraying its colonial hand, have recently presented their own versions of conflict with the Palestinian people as merely one over “BDS,” after the movement started having a palpable some disputed land. impact on the western mainstream. In several instances, these voices have ignored or undermined the Palestinian By avoiding the prescription of any particular political BDS Call and leadership as the reference for the global formula, the BDS Call insists, instead, on the necessity movement, in an attempt to project themselves as an of including the three basic, irreducible rights above alternative, Israel-centered reference. Their ultimate in any just and legal solution. It presents a platform objectives are clear: salvaging their lost, unwarranted that not only unifies Palestinians everywhere in the agency and inflated sense of entitlement to speak on face of accelerating fragmentation but also appeals to behalf of the Palestinians; forestalling any challenges international civil society by evoking the same universal to Israel’s system of apartheid and denial of refugee principles of freedom, justice and equal rights that were rights by circumscribing Palestinian rights to the upheld by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa “ending the occupation” in return for dropping “all and the civil rights movement in the United States, claims” paradigm; and restraining solidarity initiatives to among many others. conform to their selective and ideologically motivated agendas. In this way, the BDS movement has dragged Israel and its well-financed lobby groups onto a battlefield where

80 As in the struggle against South African apartheid, from Israel Bonds and from all companies, banks genuine solidarity movements recognize and follow and other financial institutions that profit from the lead of the oppressed, who are not passive objects or are otherwise complicit in Israel’s violations but active, rational subjects that are asserting their of international law and Palestinian rights. Major aspirations and rights as well as their strategy to realize Christian Palestinian figures recently issued “A them.7 Moment of Truth,” a document by the Palestine Kairos group calling on churches around the world Moral Consistency and Context-Specific “to say a word of truth and to take a position of Strategies truth” and explicitly endorsing BDS “as tools of justice, peace and security;”11 The BDS Call builds on many Palestinian and • Promoting divestment from and/or a realistic boycott international initiatives for boycotting Israel and/or of products of companies -- whether Israeli or divesting from it, particularly since the UN Conference international -- that are implicated in violations Against Racism in Durban in 2001. Whereas moral of international law and human rights, such as consistency and commitment to universal human Elbit Systems, BAE, Veolia, Alstom, Eden Springs, rights are the overriding principles of the global BDS Agrexco-Carmel, Ahava, Lev Leviev Diamonds, movement, operationally, BDS is based on three Motorola, Caterpillar, among others; basic principles: context sensitivity, gradualness, and sustainability. Conscientious academics, intellectuals, • Promoting ethical pilgrimage to the Holy Land by human rights activists and civil society organizations in directly benefiting Palestinian hotels, restaurants, any given country, the movement recognizes, know best coach services, guides, etc., denying Israel, its airlines how to apply BDS most effectively in their particular and its apartheid institutions the lucrative revenues circumstances, taking into consideration their respective that accrue from such pilgrimage; political realities, constraints and potential. • Applying public pressure to ostracize the Jewish Several BDS recommendations were adopted at a civil National Fund (JNF) and deny it its current legal society forum held in Bilbao, the Basque Country status in most western countries as a tax exempt, (Spain), in November 2008, with the participation of charitable organization; tens of Palestinian, European and Israeli progressive organizations endorsing BDS.8 Some of these • Lobbying local councils and regional governments recommendations are included in the following to strictly apply domestic and international laws BDS campaign priorities, which reflect the collective which urge them to preclude from public contracts experiences in the BDS movement since its inception in companies that are involved in “grave misconduct,” 2005: especially at the human rights level; • Promoting a general boycott of all Israeli products • Applying effective pressure on public officials and and services until Israel fully complies with its political parties to heed Amnesty International’s call obligations under international law;9 for an immediate arms embargo on all parties of the “conflict;”12 • Promoting a boycott of all Israeli academic, cultural and tourist institutions that are complicit • Calling for an immediate suspension of all free- in maintaining the Israeli occupation and apartheid trade and other preferential trade agreements with regime.10 This demands raising awareness among Israel due to its violations of international law and academics, artists and cultural workers about the Palestinian rights;13 role these institutions have played in perpetuating injustice and colonial oppression; • Applying pressure for the immediate and unconditional implementation of the • Implementing ethical investment principles by trade recommendations included in the Goldstone Report, unions, faith-based organizations, local councils and adopted by the UN Human Rights Council and national pension funds, among others, by divesting 81 backed by the UN General Assembly and almost in the democratic political process. A progressive every major international human rights organization, transformation in US and European Union (EU) to hold Israel accountable for committing war priorities from directing these nations’ great human and crimes and crimes against humanity. material resources into wars and imperial hegemony on the international scene to investing in universal health In challenging Israel’s oppression, the global BDS care, dignified housing, a school system that is conducive campaign does not call for Israel to be treated according to critical and contextual learning and development, to higher or lower standards than those that apply to decent jobs, and reversing the fatal damage to the any other state committing similar crimes and violations environment, is not only good on its own merits for the of international law. Although Israel is by no means peoples of the West; it is also great for the world -- for the most atrocious offender around the world, it is Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Latin America, Africa, and, the only ongoing offender that has constantly been most certainly, Palestine. treated as an honorary member of the Western club of “democracies,” with the Holocaust cynically -- and The global BDS movement for Palestinian rights quite irrelevantly -- summoned as a smokescreen to presents a progressive, anti racist, sustainable, moral cover up this collusion. The virtually unparalleled state and effective form of civil, non-violent resistance for of exceptionalism and impunity that Israel enjoys Palestinian human rights that is also fast becoming today allows it to pursue its agenda of apartheid, ethnic one of the key political catalysts and moral anchors cleansing and slow-genocide against the indigenous for a strengthened, reinvigorated international social people of Palestine without any regard to international movement capable of ending the law of the jungle and law or concern about possible punitive measures for upholding in its stead the rule of law, reaffirming the violating it. As some progressive Jewish intellectuals rights of all humans to freedom, equality and dignified have stated recently, “Never Again!” must always be living. understood to mean: never again to anyone.14 Indeed, BDS may well prove to be the most powerful Western civil society carries a unique responsibility form of popular Palestinian resistance ever. to hold Israel accountable to international law due to the incomparable level of complicity of Western governments in sustaining Israel’s system of colonial and racial oppression through vast diplomatic, economic, academic, cultural and political support – all in the name of Western citizens and using their tax Endnotes money. Deep complicity engenders profound moral 1. See: http://www.aipac.org/Publications/ responsibility. While several Arab regimes – including SpeechesByAIPACLeadership/HowardKohr.pdf parts of the Palestinian Authority – are also colluding in the implementation of the Israeli-US agenda in the 2. See: http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52 region, their impact is considerably less significant that that of Western states in sustaining Israel’s three-tiered 3. For an in-depth analysis of Israel’s apartheid system of oppression.15 and colonial system see the strategic position paper published by the BDS National Committee (BNC), Collusion and moral duty aside, the responsibility titled “United Against Apartheid, Colonialism and to promote and support the BDS campaign against Occupation,” October 2008: http://bdsmovement.net/ Israel also derives from common interest. While the files/English-BNC_Position_Paper-Durban_Review.pdf US and other Western states fund Israel’s endless wars and system of apartheid to the tune of billions of 4. For more on the systematic forcible displacement of dollars every year, millions of children in the West are the Palestinians see: Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing still left behind in substandard housing, inadequate of Palestine, Oneworld. (Oxford: 2007). or non-existent , poor education and an establishment that effectively disenfranchises them when they grow up from effectively participating

82 5. BNC members include: Council of National on shipping arms to Israel through any country’s ports and Islamic Forces in Palestine, General Union of and airspace. Palestinian Workers, Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), 13. The EU-Israel Association Agreement and the Palestinian National Council for NGOs, Federation MERCOSUR-Israel FTA are high priority targets. of Independent Trade Unions, Global Palestine Right of Return Coalition, Occupied Palestine and 14. See, for instance, Naomi Klein’s statements in this Syrian Golan Heights Initiative, General Union of regard at a lecture last year in Ramallah covered by Palestinian Women, Union of Palestinian Farmers, Haaretz --Yotam Feldman, Noami Klein: Oppose the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign State Not the People, Haaretz, 2 July 2009: http://www. (STW), National Committee for Popular Resistance, haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097058.html Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), National Committee to 15. The PA as an entity plays an indispensable role Commemorate the Nakba, Civic Coalition for the in legitimizing Israel’s claims and in whitewashing its Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), violations of international law and war crimes. Gradually Coalition for Jerusalem, Union of Palestinian Charitable dissolving the PA and the democratic, bottom-up take Organizations, Palestinian Economic Monitor, Union of over and reconstruction of the PLO to reinstitute it Youth Activity Centers-Palestine Refugee Camps. as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people everywhere, inclusive of all major national 6. See, for example: http://boycottisrael.info/ and and Islamist political parties, would deny Israel its http://www.alternativenews.org/ most valuable asset and help undermine its regime of oppression against the people of Palestine. 7. The Cairo Declaration, produced and endorsed by representatives of solidarity groups from more than 40 countries who protested in Egypt as part of the Gaza Freedom March, provides a distinguished example of such principled solidarity: http://cairodeclaration.org/

8. See: http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/213

9. For arguments against strategically restricting the boycott to “settlement products” see: http:// electronicintifada.net/v2/article9948.shtml

10. For more on the academic boycott see: www.PACBI. org. Also a recent study published by the Alternative Information Center documents many aspects of the complicity of the Israeli academy in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people: http://alternativenews.org/ publications/econoccupation/2223-the-economy-of- the-occupation-23-24-academic-boycott-of-israel.html

11. See: http://www.kairospalestine.ps/sites/default/ Documents/English.pdf

12. Regardless of the valid criticism against Amnesty’s morally and legally flawed equation between the occupying power on the one hand and the people under occupation and their resistance movement on the other, this call still includes a ban on arms trade with Israel and

83 To Achieve One State, Palestinians Must Also Work for Two

by Nadia Hijab February 2018

In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s single state is closely tied to the right of the refugees to recognition of Jerusalem1 as the capital of Israel, return to their homes and lands. reinforced by Vice President Mike Pence’s promise to move the US embassy2 before the end of 2019, there Through a single state Palestinians would exercise their has been a flurry3 of pieces heralding4 the imminent right to self-determination by returning to and living shift in a Palestinian strategy toward a one-state solution in the entirety of the land that had been Palestine, with equal rights. Both Palestinian negotiators closely alongside the Jews living there, with equal rights for all. involved5 in the moribund Oslo peace process and While the 1968 PLO charter spoke of the Jews who had Palestinians who have long since despaired of Oslo resided in Palestine before the Zionist conquest resulted declared6 that it is time to transform the struggle. in the creation of Israel, present Palestinian advocates Meanwhile, Israel continued to expand settlements, of a one-state solution recognize that it must encompass crack down on protests, and plan annexation of some or all its inhabitants. all of the West Bank.

Is the two-state solution really doomed, and is it time to “Had the two-state move to a struggle for a single state? This commentary will argue that either state outcome can be made to solution stayed close achieve Palestinian aspirations and rights, and that, moreover, fulfilling Palestinian rights requires some of to its original framing, the sources of power associated with the state system. It will also urge that time and energy be spent on clarifying it could have fulfilled Palestinian goals and understanding why they have not yet been achieved, and then zeroing in on the sources Palestinian rights.” of power needed to achieve them. The final section will discuss one of those sources of power in detail, that of As for the two-state solution, it is important to the Palestinian narrative, and will call for a reframing distinguish between the vision expressed in 1988, when of that narrative, including the narrative around BDS7 the Palestinian National Council (PNC) adopted it, and (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions).8 the truncated, economically and politically crippled travesty of justice set out in the Oslo Accords that Palestinian Goals in One-State and Two- began to be signed in 1993. When it was adopted in State Outcomes 1988, the two-state solution was seen as a pragmatic, doable recognition of reality. Palestinians would exercise The goal of the Palestinian struggle continues to be the right to self-determination through a sovereign expressed in terms of state structures. Yet in terms of state that would secure the rights of its citizens. Such a achieving Palestinian rights, what would a one-state state would enable Palestine to join the community of political outcome achieve that two states would not? It is nations. Further, the 1988 PNC resolution upheld the worth briefly examining each outcome. The vision of a UN resolutions regarding the rights of the Palestinian one-state solution, as set out by the Palestine Liberation refugees. And the struggle for two states does not mean Organization (PLO) in 1968, has always been more forsaking the vital struggle for equality of the Palestinian compelling for Palestinians than that of two states. A citizens of Israel.

84 Oslo doomed a rights-based state project from the start. asking European states to serve as mediators will not On the Palestinian side, the acceptance of the Accords move the Palestinian cause forward. There is nothing included an implicit assumption that Palestinian refugee to mediate: The Israelis have made their goals clear; rights would be severely circumscribed, thus sacrificing the best the Palestinians can hope for is disconnected a core Palestinian right. On the Israeli side, there was Bantustans. One worst-case scenario would be for a never any intention of allowing a sovereign Palestinian “deal” that would appear to fulfill some Palestinian state to emerge alongside Israel. Yitzhak Rabin, heralded rights after which the world would go home, leaving the as the great peacemaker, made it clear soon after the Palestinians at Israel’s mercy. No one will do anything first Oslo agreement that he intended to ensure that for the Palestinian people – not the Europeans, or the Palestinians would have no more than an entity that was US, or Israel – unless they are pressured to do so. “less than a state,”9 with Israel’s security border located in the Jordan Valley. Those positions carried through In short, Palestinians will need to build considerable the years of negotiations.10 Israeli positions have greatly power to exercise the pressure needed to achieve a hardened since: Most recently, the Likud Central solution that would guarantee their rights. And to do so Committee unanimously voted11 to call on the party’s they will need some of the sources of power that they leaders to annex the West Bank. have acquired through membership in the state system, whether legal, diplomatic, or through participation in international organizations. However, those sources of “No one will do anything power must be used far more effectively and strategically than in the superficial way that the PLO has used them. for the Palestinian people Even the hard-fought membership of UNESCO, which cost that organization dearly, could have been used to unless they are pressured establish Palestinian sovereignty on land and sea.12

to do so.” Moreover, imagine the different situation today if the PLO had “activated” the 2004 International Court of Had the two-state solution stayed close to its original Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal wall that snakes through framing, it could have fulfilled Palestinian rights to self- the OPT. Although it was an advisory opinion, its clear determination and return, just as the one-state would call13 on all states not to “recognize the illegal situation have, if the Palestinians had been able to build enough resulting from the construction of the wall” and, more power to ensure that Israel would respect the right of importantly, not to provide any aid or assistance that return and equal rights in one state, and the right of could maintain that situation, could have been used to return and sovereignty in two states. push rules-conscious European countries into much more decisively ensuring that their relations with Israel The reality today is that the Palestinian people did not support the illegal Israeli settlements. have no power to achieve either outcome in the foreseeable future and to impose the recognition It is because the PLO did not capitalize on what and implementation of their rights on Israel or on a member of the Palestinian delegation privately the international community. In fact, the Palestinian described at the time as this “great win” that Palestinian leadership, believing that Oslo was leading to a civil society, exactly a year later, launched the BDS Palestinian state, let the sources of power that it had movement, with the clear aim of upholding international accumulated in the 1970s and 1980s dissipate, including law and putting a major source of power behind it. a vibrant solidarity movement and strong relationships with the countries of the South, the Soviet Union, and The road ahead is long. No one is in any rush to help China. Palestinians fulfill their rights. So there is no rush to decide on the ultimate political outcome: Either could PLO President Mahmoud Abbas has not declared the work so long as it fulfills Palestinian rights. This was end of the two-state solution and clearly hopes that the smart, strategic approach of the BDS movement’s the Europeans will step in now that he has, perhaps founders. Given the disarray of the national movement temporarily, washed his hands of the US. However, and the lack of consensus around political goals, the

85 founders focused instead14 on rights as goals, calling for regret, and reparations. These are necessary to heal the the realization of self-determination through freedom national wound of the Palestinian people and of every from occupation, equality for the Palestinian citizens of Palestinian person. Israel, and justice for the Palestinian refugees in fulfilling their right of return. This enabled the movement to It may seem quixotic to speak of this demand at a time reach the broadest spectrum of Palestinian society as when Israel appears so powerful and Palestinians so well as of international solidarity activists – and to build crushed and helpless. And yet recognition, regret, and a considerable source of power. reparations are also needed to exorcise the ghost that haunts Israelis. There is a deep-seated fear that the Every source of power available should be analyzed and narrative underpinning the creation of the Israeli state – understood for what it has to offer, its strengths and its that of brave pioneers establishing wonders in a hostile pitfalls, and Palestinian civil society should ally with the and empty desert – will be exposed for the sham it was, PLO (or what is left of it) whenever possible to advance as will all the deliberate cruelty that accompanied it and Palestinian national interests and to oppose Palestinian still does. This would undermine the Zionist project at political representatives when they place those interests its core. in danger.15 In the discussion below I will focus on one major source of power, the Palestinian narrative, and “If there is to be a ways in which it can be more effectively used to advance Palestinian rights. different, better future, Getting the Narrative Right on Palestine there needs to be Israeli (and on BDS) recognition, regret, and Part of the Palestinian narrative has to do with the past, reparations.” and part has to do with the goals of the Palestinian struggle and is more forward-looking. - In fact, moving beyond this narrative is far from looking part remains muted and insufficiently effective, impossible: It has been achieved by the many Jews while that of the past is fully fleshed out. who are moving or have moved from the ideology of Zionism to upholding universal human rights. And it is The narrative of the past is, for Palestinians, an the basis for an alternative future in which Palestinians existential matter: They are determined that the reality and Jews live together as equals. That future is already of what happened to Palestine and to the Palestinians here in some organizations in the United States, such as be seen for the injustice that it was. This is why so much the fast-growing Jewish Voice for Peace, which includes time was spent during the 100th anniversary of the several Palestinians16 amongst its membership, as well Balfour Declaration last year on demanding an apology as Students for Justice in Palestine groups across US from Britain, whose colonial aims enabled the loss of campuses, which include Palestinians, Jews, and a mix of Palestine and the creation of Israel. And this is why so other ethnicities and religions. much time will be spent this year, the 70th anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe), on that narrative of loss. But the Palestinians badly need a forward-looking narrative that unifies them and that communicates the An apology from Britain might have sufficed but it was power of their vision. Israel continues to dominate the never in the cards: Former colonial powers do not want narrative in the West, where it has most of its power to tarnish their own narratives, as horrible as they were, base, despite inroads made by Palestinian writers and or to lay themselves open to demands for reparations. analysts and by numerous organizations and individuals But the situation differs in the case of Israel. If there in the Palestine solidarity movement. It is partly the is to be a different, better future between Israel and the lack of a unified forward-looking and positive vision by people of historic Palestine there needs to be not only Palestinians that enables Israel to do this. recognition of the injustice that the Zionist project visited on the Palestinians, but also an expression of

86 Palestinians must use, including legal and diplomatic “Palestinians badly ones. Culture and the arts also play a key role in the need a forward- quest for Palestinian rights, and they are thriving. It is urgent that the goals be placed front and center: looking narrative that They are an uplifting and positive vision that can quickly occupy the high ground. Palestinian politicians, communicates the power civil society, and the solidarity movement should unify around and call for Freedom, Justice and Equality. And of their vision.” freedom, justice, and equality can be achieved in one state or two. Moreover, a forward-looking narrative can provide a vision and direction for the Palestinian movement until the time comes when a decision is made as to whether the political outcome could be one state or two. A Endnotes unifying narrative is also important because it is unlikely 1. See: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings- that Palestinian political unity will be achieved in the statements/statement-president-trump-jerusalem/ foreseeable future. Fatah and Hamas are too far apart, and Israel’s physical fragmentation of the Palestinian 2. See: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/pence- people has successfully created barriers between them. tells-israeli-lawmakers-u-s-embassy-in-jerusalem- A unifying narrative would enable all parts of the will-open-before-end-of-2019-1.5750679?utm_ Palestinian people to work toward the same goals – and campaign=newsletter-breaking-news&utm_ to keep up the struggle until those goals are achieved, medium=email&utm_source=smartfocus&utm_ rather than stopping halfway along the road as happened content=%2Fisrael-news%2Fpence-tells-israeli- with Oslo. lawmakers-u-s-embassy-in-jerusalem-will-open-before- end-of-20191.5750679 That unifying Palestinian narrative already exists: Freedom, Justice, Equality. These are the goals identified 3. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/world/ by the BDS movement. These are also goals that all middleeast/israel-palestinians-state.html Palestinians can aspire to and support, and they speak to the reality of each segment of the Palestinian people, 4. See: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/01/18/ whether those living under occupation, the Palestinian homeless-in-gaza/ citizens of Israel, or the refugees and exiles. There is a pitfall to be avoided: In calling for equality, every 5. See: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ care must be taken to specify that this relates to the the-man-in-the-middle-of-trump-palestinian-tensions Palestinian citizens of Israel and not to equality between Palestinians living under occupation and the settlers 6. See: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/ living in Israel’s illegal settlements. palestinians/.premium-two-state-solution-is-over-top- palestinian-diplomat-says-1.5627973 However, for these goals to successfully take their place at the forefront of the Palestinian national movement, 7. See: https://bdsmovement.net/ the discourse around BDS must be reframed. Currently, the focus is on the BDS strategy and not on the goals 8. Some of the material in this paper was presented identified in the BDS call, even though they are featured in a talk at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign annual at the top of its website.17 By itself the BDS strategy meeting on January 27, 2018. The talk was published by cannot achieve freedom, justice, and equality, as its on January 31, 2018: http://mondoweiss. founders are well aware.18 Yet because none of the net/2018/01/freedom-justice-equality/ other strategies are as effectively used and advanced as that of BDS, it dominates the scene. Care should be 9. See: http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/mfa-archive/1995/ taken to present BDS as one of many strategies that the

87 14. See: https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/bds- discussing-difficult-issues-in-a-fast-growing-movement/

15. Palestinian sources of power and options are the subject for a different piece with input from numerous analysts (I have touched on it briefly here: https://al- shabaka.org/commentaries/trumps-jerusalem-h-bomb- weighing-options-palestinians/).

16. See: https://www.thenation.com/article/jewish- voice-peace-conference-what-solidarity-looks/

17. See: https://bdsmovement.net/

18. See: https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/bds- discussing-difficult-issues-in-a-fast-growing-movement/

88 Additional Recommended Reading

The following publications may be found at al-shabaka.org

Additional Reading on How the Past Impacts the Palestinian Present

The Price of Statelessness: Palestinian Refugees from Syria by Rosemary Sayigh The Missing Narratives in Palestinian Schoolbooks by Zarefa Ali Uneasy but Necessary: The UNRWA-Palestinian Relationship by Randa Farah

Reclaiming the Palestinian Narrative by Jamil Hilal

Additional Reading on Refugees

Trapped by Denial of Rights, Illusion of Statehood: The Case of the Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon by Jaber Suleiman Palestinian Refugees from Syria: Stranded on the Margins of Law by Mai Abu Moghli, Nael Bitarie, and Nell Gabiam

Palestinians and the Syrian War: Between Neutrality and Dissent by Samar Batrawi Keeping an Eye on UNRWA by Randa Farah

Additional Reading on the Warning Signs

The Customs Union and Israel’s No-State Solution by Amal Ahmad The Palestinian Authority Security Forces: Whose Security? by Alaa Tartir

Drying Palestine: Israel’s Systemic Water War by Muna Dajani The Palestinian Authority: Unsettling Status Quo Scenarios by Asem Khalil Beyond South Africa: Understanding Israeli Apartheid by Samer Abdelnour Rethinking Our Definition of Apartheid: Not Just a Political Regime by Haidar Eid and Andy Clarno

Additional Reading on Visions and Strategies

Palestine’s Day in Court? The Unexpected Effects of ICC Action by Valentina Azarova Beyond the Apartheid Analogy: Time to Reframe Our Palestinian Struggle by Irene Calis Palestinian Political Disintegration, Culture, and National Identity by Jamil Hilal Talking Palestine: What Frame of Analysis? Which Goals and Messages? by Nadia Hijab and Ingrid Jaradat

89 For the most informative Palestinian perspectives and analysis, follow Al-Shabaka:

Join our email list: al-shabaka.org/signup

Like us on Facebook: /AlShabakaPalestinianPolicyNetwork

Follow us on : @AlShabaka

Email us at [email protected]

Visit www.al-shabaka.org

Cover and back photo: Flickr.com/mozzoom In-text photos: APA90 Images